A Different Threefold Man
by tkelparis
Summary: Not even Caan could see every possibility. The Hand was far more aware than anyone gave it credit for, and it transformed itself into something different. Now Donna Noble and the Doctor have their work cut out for them.
1. Double Vision

**Title**: A Different Threefold Man

**Rating**: T

**Author**: tkel_paris

**Summary**: Not even Caan could see every possibility. The Hand was far more aware than anyone gave it credit for, and it transformed itself into something different. Now Donna Noble and the Doctor have their work cut out for them.

**Dedication**: tardis-mole. This was provoked by "Another Fine Mess." You'll have to read it _all the way through_ to have any clue why. And yes, I beta read that story, so in a tiny way I'm tooting my own horn in addition to TM's. ;D And thank you, my friend, for the chapter titles! :D

**Disclaimer**: Rose Tyler wouldn't have been anywhere near Series 4, and therefore this probably couldn't have happened, had I anything to do with owning these characters. I've lost all respect for the character, I freely admit it. Which means I've lost some respect for her creator. Shame, since he also created characters that I adore.

**Author's Note**: A new entry for the Alternate Handy Fanfiction Challenge. Nope, we haven't mined this one to death. Not at all! :D And there are still other possibilities! :D

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**Chapter One: Double Vision**

Donna felt the energy within the Hand touch her mind. It gave her a massive headache as it seemed to consume her, but then, after who know how long, she felt the energy withdraw - forcing her body away violently. She gasped in shock as she found control of her limbs again, and looked to where the hand was lying.

Golden energy was making it grow. It vibrated wildly and then exploded like the Doctor had not long ago. Donna shielded her eyes against the brightness, which suddenly seemed to have two sources, before it faded enough that she could uncover her eyes. They widened as she saw two humanoid shapes forming, one with a sharper outline and the other with a softer one. The glowing faded as they sat up as one, staring at her and-

Donna's mouth dropped. The one on the left looked almost exactly like the Doctor, which some part of her mind was somehow expecting, but the other...looked almost exactly like her! Only one thing could come out of her mouth, as dazed as she was: "You're both naked!"

The two people only then seemed to notice each other, and hopped in their sitting positions. "Oh!" They seemed startled, and a little shocked. Although they would've kept staring in surprise – except the Duplicate Doctor noticed the flames. "Oh," he cried out, "the Crucible!"

Donna's distracted mind still noticed something odd about his accent. It didn't sound like the Doctor's.

The Duplicate Donna turned toward the Controls, being closer, and crawled quickly over to press a blue button. "There," she called out triumphantly, "the Doctor's favourite button!"

Another accent that didn't sound like the original person's! Donna watched as the TARDIS engines kicked in, and the flames died out. She could hear the repair systems start working again. She wasn't going to die! But what about the Doctor? What was happening to him, Jack and Rose?

Her attention was distracted by the two manic naked people rushing around the Controls, checking settings and seemingly communicating without talking. Or looking at each other – except in occasional exasperation. As though one had just somehow said something utterly daft. Donna felt completely weird about the situation...and a bit freaked out. Did that...Duplicate Doctor...look _exactly_ like him? If they all survived this, things could get very awkward between her and the Doctor; the body she saw was actually **much** better looking out of those suits and pinstripes.

That was not a good thing to realize. She already kept enough things from the Doctor. This would be one more, and even more critical, to be kept from him. She wasn't sure about how mentally stable Rose was, given how she'd begged the Doctor to not regenerate – even though that was the only thing that would save his life. The girl seemed awfully jealous when the Doctor had hugged her, and very single-minded on getting back to him in that parallel world. Secrets she could handle. She'd kept a big one from the Doctor all this time already.

At least she prayed she had. Given that he was a touch telepath, who knew what he'd sensed – even by accident – when he opened her mind to hear the Ood song or when she snogged him to save his life? The last thing she wanted to be seen as was another Martha to him. Of course, that Martian was such a bloke about feelings that he might've mistaken anything he did detect for a more platonic nature. She could hope.

Although Donna would rather be a Martha than a Rose. Especially after seeing how possessive Rose had been about the Doctor in that parallel world. Could what that girl did to the TARDIS be called murder? Or rape? Or both?

If the Doctor's sudden and brief dark look upon hearing that detail was anything to go by, perhaps. He had seemed a bit conflicted about Rose coming back after that. Donna wondered just what had happened to reset things back to their rightful place. Her memories – fuzzy as they were – stopped with that dreadful machine being activated.

But – and this was a more pressing concern – she wasn't sure how she felt about someone who looked like that daft Spaceman knowing what she looked like naked. Not that this one seemed to pay attention to that. If anything, they were studiously not looking at each other – although neither seemed freaked about their respective lack of clothing.

Donna, however, was. "Oi!"

Her Duplicate looked up and held up a hand. "Sh-sh-sh!" She approached quickly. "We have to be quiet! We pulled away from that death trap, but the Daleks might still detect us!"

Donna blinked, still thrown by the accent difference. She sounded like she was from Surry or West Sussex! Although she also noticed that the two looked a lot younger than she and the Doctor did. In fact, they looked like bloody kids! Donna knew she hadn't looked that young since her early teens. Or been that short. And on second look, the Doctor's Duplicate's hair was sticking up even more, he was actually shorter than her Duplicate by an inch, and his face looked equally untouched by stress. Or fuzz requiring a razor. Or acne. Although he had every one of the Doctor's facial freckles.

Which meant... She blushed.

"So," the Duplicate Doctor added, also whispering and joining the Duplicate Donna in coming over to Donna, "we're running on silent. Like those old submarines when you can't drop a spanner."

Donna pursed her lips. "Okay," she whispered back, still trying to figure out what sounded so familiar about each of them while her eyes played ping pong, "but could you each please get dressed? And what are you two? Time Lords must be absolutely bonkers if they cut off a limb and grow a new person from it! Or people!"

Her Duplicate quietly laughed. "No, we're something unique. A complicated event in Space-Time, if you please."

The Duplicate Doctor nodded. "When the Hand that we were was cut off, the Doctor was still in his regeneration cycle. So there was energy trapped in us, unable to resolve itself into normalcy-"

"But then," the Duplicate Donna interjected quietly, "you touched the jar and wham!"

Donna jerked backwards slightly, flinching over their insane excitement at their explanation.

The Duplicate Doctor continued with restrained energy. "We had all the DNA we needed to become a full person!"

"But," Donna began, forcing the words out of her shocked mouth, "there's one of the Doctor and one of me." Then it dawned on her. "Oh, my God! Your accents are flipped! How?"

Her Duplicate's smile faded, as did the Doctor's Duplicate's, as she touched Donna's shoulder. "For one moment while we – as the Hand – were connected to you because of the regenerative energy, a possible future flashed before us. The Hand only turned into him, leaving a lot of energy inside you. Davros later zapped you-"

"Activating that energy into a Time Lord consciousness inside your mind." The Duplicate Doctor's sad look turned a bit proud. "Oh, you would've been so beyond magnificent, it would've been breathtaking! But it would've meant you would've either died or the Doctor would have to lock away all your memories of him because he couldn't let you die."

Donna gasped in horror. "But that is a death!"

The Duplicate Doctor put a hand on her shoulder. "We know. We couldn't let either of those things happen. So we drew that energy out of you-"

"-and that copied a much greater amount of your DNA into us, which made things really confusing for a while. Until we somehow split apart!"

"Making the two people you see before you." The Duplicate Doctor flinched, touching his chest. "Although this weird version of cellular mitosis – twin creation – explains perfectly why our accents switched and why we each only have one heart despite all of the Time Lord DNA." He grimaced, but had enough wisdom to keep from whining. Not with two Donna Nobles there; he could be slapped on both sides.

The Duplicate Donna frowned, a hand over where the other heart would've been. She sighed. "Well, it's worth it. We saved Mum, didn't we?"

Donna's eyes – which she was struggling to keep at eye level with either of them – felt like they were threatening to expand into cartoon-like balloons. "What?"

"Sh-sh-sh!" The Duplicate Doctor held a hand up. "Yes. We're each half-human, half-Time Lord. We were all meant for this to happen, Mum. My sister and I just couldn't let anything happen to our mother." He smiled like a little boy then, offering his mother flowers he'd randomly plucked from a field on the way home from school, and his sister gave her own version of the smile.

All her life, Donna Noble had wanted a child to look at her like that. To see her as the most important person in their life. (With the possible exception of said child's daddy in their eyes.) And now two people were looking at her like that. Donna knew she hadn't looked at her own mother with that kind of love since she was a little schoolgirl. Her eyes felt watery. "Is that," she asked her Duplicate, "why you sound like the Doctor and he" she pointed at his Duplicate "sounds like me?"

She'd had the question answered already, but the shock made her need a few things repeated.

The two nodded. "A little mix-up," they said as one. "But we can live with it."

She focused on the one part that sounded the most absurd. "You're not saying this was destiny, are you? I'm nothing special!"

Her daughter took her hands. "No, Mum. Let us explain. Meeting Dad that first time was a fixed event. You were meant to save his life just as he was meant to save Earth from the Racnoss. Your paths were destined to cross again. Timing was the only questionable point, but it had to happen for other important events to happen."

Donna shook her head, unable to believe what she was hearing. Her son took up the mantle. "All those things people have said about you over the years, you took it as truth. But it wouldn't have hurt if part of you knew that you weren't what they said you were. Look at what you've done as his companion! No one else managed even half that! You're the greatest of all time!"

Despite all of the ingrained doubts, the instincts developed in response to her mother's nagging, Donna wept. "Bless, you two really think that."

Her daughter beamed. "We know it, Mum. You are the Most Important Woman in the Whole of Creation, and we're going to make sure you believe it even to a little extent."

They each threw an arm around her, wrapping her into a group hug as they nuzzled against her shoulders.

Donna tried to blink away her building tears as her arms slowly and instinctively wrapped around them. I'm a mother. The thought ran through her mind once again, sinking in this time. She had made two people, and they looked up to her. **I'm a **_**mother**_**.**

The floodgates opened. She clutched them against her, letting her face become wet. The Doctor might have unknowingly and unintentionally made her a mother, but that made it no less precious than if she'd carried them and birthed them and raised them to this point. Her chest felt like it had somehow grown on the inside, as big as the universe now. This was the most priceless gift that daft Spaceman had ever given her, and she planned to hold on with everything she had. To help him be a dad to them, to heal a bit from all the pain of losing his people and his last family. He had a new one now, and she would be a help to him.

As his friend, of course. It was foolish to hope to be more than his children's mother to him. She had to suppress the regrets that she was a mother without getting to make love to create her children.

Then the realities of their immediate situation hit her again and she cleared her throat. "Right!" She pulled out of the hug, ignoring the matching pouts. "This is the happiest I've ever been, don't get me wrong, but we have your dad to save, not to mention the universe. And I can't stand it any longer. Put on some clothes **now**!"

They blinked, and glanced at each other. "Oh," the Duplicate Donna observed. "Right. You know what your son looks like naked before you've seen his father – even if he's even skinnier than his old man. Yep, that's awkward." She rushed off toward Donna's room, where there'd be clothes that would fit.

She hoped. She was shorter, after all. That was annoying, the prospect of having to wait for a growth spurt or two to be as tall as Mum.

The Duplicate Doctor looked at his mother. "Yeah, that's a shame. You have two kids and you didn't even get to have sex."

Donna gaped. A hand pulled away from her side, but he dodged the potential slap – with a huge manic grin – by rushing to find the right storage bin for spare clothes. She dropped into the Jump Seat, her face trying to match her hair. Oh, God, she thought, if they somehow know how I feel about their father... Oh, please don't let him find out! It'll be embarrassing enough when he knows I know what he looks like starkers! Especially if Rose finds out; she'll be furious.

She paled as she remembered the stories she'd heard about Jack and the Boe-Kind. In fact, best to try to not let the Doctor find out until everyone else was gone. Or at least distracted, just in case Rose stayed.

Donna had lost all track of time in her rambling thoughts when she heard her son wandering around again. He was buttoning up a jacket matching the blue trousers he'd found. It looked like a suit she'd seen the Doctor wear about half the time, although it was the without-a-tie look. She frowned as she also noticed how the baggy clothing and bare feet heightened how young the boy looked. He was struggling to not trip over the too-long trouser legs, his father's manic energy brimming over as he also tried to push up the jacket sleeves.

Come to think of it, the Doctor often reminded her of a teenager. How **was** she going to handle having three to deal with?

"There!" He was satisfied with what he saw as he inspected the ship. "Repairs largely done. A few things will need more time, but the Old Girl knows they have to wait."

"And now," the girl quietly called out, rushing into the room with one hand closed around something and the other holding a belt, "we can save Creation!"

Donna looked over and blinked. She immediately recognized the entire outfit from the pink top down to the trousers. She last wore it when she and the Doctor landed in 1926, before she changed into the flapper outfit. She was suddenly unsure whether it looked better on her own almost forty years-old body or her daughter's seemingly fourteen years-old body. If you adjusted it to fit the girl's flatter chest.

And the girl was equally barefoot. Oh, right, Donna realized numbly, her feet would be too small for my shoes. Same must go for my son and his father's shoes. Although why were her feet clearly sticking out?

The Duplicate Doctor looked up, and grinned. "Safety pins!"

That answered her question. Donna watched as her daughter quickly helped him roll the sleeves so his hands were free, and swiftly used three pins to keep each roll in place. Her son was awkwardly putting on the belt with one hand, grimacing. Donna recognized it as the smallest one she brought on board. She usually could only use the last notch. Her poor son needed it to keep the trousers at his waist. As soon as his sleeves were done, he swiftly finished attaching the belt while his sister rolled the legs up enough. Then he pinned one leg, she the other.

The whole time, neither said a word. Yet their actions were coordinated. Were they talking to each other through their minds? Like the Doctor had said that his people could? Did that mean he wasn't alone anymore, that he could have those empty spaces he once spoke of filled a bit once again?

Except when her children rushed to look at the controls, watching some of the readings they saw, Donna reminded herself that she had to put all her personal concerns aside. The realities of sudden motherhood could wait. Worries about what the Doctor's reaction might be could wait. Concerns over Rose Tyler's behavior here and in that parallel world could even wait. If they didn't find a way to stop the Daleks and whatever they wanted all of the planets for, none of it would matter.

No, she told herself, standing to join them. We will find a way. If this miracle could happen, then the universe can be saved! And so this Earthgirl would be as much of a help as she could.


	2. Twice the Work

**Author's Note:** There's a set of paragraphs in this chapter that I read aloud to members of my NaNo writers group. One, who isn't a Whovian, liked the sound of it. Another, who is a Whovian who likes the Ten and Donna dynamic but isn't a shipper, grinned over it. The set is capped by a line I'm very proud of. Am wondering how many will spot it. :D

* * *

**Chapter Two: Twice the Work**

The Doctor knew his pleas were useless, and he couldn't meet the gazes of any of the Children of Time. They didn't understand his shame, his horror, his realizations. It was all too late. The Daleks would destroy everything, then kill his companions one by one (except for Jack – he'd keep coming back and they'd keep killing him), and then...keep him as something less than a pet. Drive him insane by forcing him to confront every one of his mistakes and crimes at once. Destroy what was left of the universe after the Reality Bomb with a paradox.

And he would be left cursing Rose Tyler for using the Dimension Cannon. Which a part of his dusty, overwhelmed mind was already doing. It had to have contributed to weakening the walls between not just the universes, but the important ones between the Time Lock and the rest of Reality. And then there was the last time Rose met Caan. Had her actions under the influence of the Vortex energy – with the power trip she was so clearly on from it – contributed to today?

Who knew what would keep happening to Jack, though. He might wind up witnessing the Doctor's mental slide into a point of no return. Bad enough the Daleks would see it. A friend was worse, especially one who you had to keep a lot of secrets from.

But then a sound burst into the countdown. A sound the Doctor thought he'd never hear again. The TARDIS! Appearing like an angel of mercy! But... His mind churned. How had Donna flown away? He knew she'd learned the piloting mechanics well, but he wasn't sure he'd taught her enough to escape. And what did she think she was doing?

The doors opened, and out came the biggest shock of the Doctor's life. Himself, in a blue suit! And right behind him- Wait, when had Donna ever changed clothes in the midst of a crisis? Had her clothes been singed so much that she changed into the outfit she wore when they had arrived in 1926? And when did she **ever** go barefoot if she wasn't about to go to her room for sleep?

His Duplicate – had to be from his spare hand, he realized, but how did the hand grow into him? – rushed forward, carrying something that looked alarmingly like a gun. Behind him, Donna looked to the side and rushed toward a set of controls.

Davros shouted and raised his arm toward Donna, but the Duplicate raised his weapon – drawing the Dalek creator's fire instead. He dropped his weapon, and was quickly encased in one of the fields, flinching over the shock and pain. "Stop the female!" Davros cried as Donna vanished behind the controls.

Several Daleks moved toward the controls, but suddenly stopped. Then the countdown halted as something massive clicked. Then the Doctor watched as Donna stood up, smirking. "Aaaand, closing all Z-Neutrino relay loops with an internalised synchronous back-feed reversal loop. That button there! And you Daleks can't move because I created a macro-transmission of a K-filter wavelength blocking Dalek weaponry in a self-replicating energy blindfold matrix."

The Duplicate laughed delightedly. "Too late, Davros! We've stopped you!"

The Doctor and the rest of the Children of Time watched in shock. They noticed that the Reality Bomb had been stopped. It was impossible to ignore the shouting of the Daleks up above and especially of the Supreme Dalek.

Davros shouted in dismay, "You will suffer for this!" He raised his arm again, but the bolt he was preparing ran up his own arm instead, forcing a scream out.

"Sorry," Donna said, not sounding it at all, "My-bad. Bioelectric dampening field with a retrogressive arc inversion. Simple stuff! Easy-peasey pudding and pie!" She hit something else and the force fields vanished. "There, that's the rest of you free now!"

The Duplicate rushed over to help her with the controls. "Time to send those planets home!"

The Doctor was pulled out of his stupor, stepping forward a bit. "Wait! Donna, how can you know all of this? You can't even change a plug."

"Oi!"

The shout came from the TARDIS. All heads with mouths turned and saw Donna Noble, in the same clothes as she had been wearing before their capture, standing in the TARDIS doorway with her arms folded under her chest and glaring at the Doctor. His eyes were the widest of the bunch, and his jaw tried to slam against his chest. "But, but, but, but-"

"Listen, Spaceman!" Donna's eyes held a fire that she'd only held a few times in her life, always with cause. "Just because I say something about myself it don't mean you have the right to repeat it! Leave that junk to my mother!"

"And Gran," the Duplicate retorted, helping the other Donna flip levers, making the Daleks spin without their permission and ignoring all of the cries of dismay, "doesn't know what a blessing she has! Dad can tell you that, Mum!"

Rose's eyes went wide. "'Dad?' 'Mum?' 'Gran?' What are you talking about? Who are you two?"

The two by the Controls ignored her. They looked at the Doctor, noticing how he wasn't reacting much to them calling or referring to him as Dad and said as one, smirking, "You gonna stand there like a dumb skinny boy or are you going to help us turn the Daleks into spinning tops and then send the planets home, Doctor Daddy-Dad?"

The Children of Time all thought their eyes would pop out. What?

The simultaneous exclamation stunned the Doctor and the words shocked him almost senseless, but his feet carried him over. The universe did need to be set right. Even if he really wanted to know how these two were coming up with what they did. Which just about beat out the wish to go back to bed and start the day over. Couldn't safely go back on his own time-line, unfortunately. At least, not without a time crash. And those were bad enough with different selves; an earlier this him would be much worse. Actually, given the presence of someone who brought Reapers upon Earth through idiotic selfish desires, he had better stop that line of thought quick smart.

He looked at the two up close and realized they had just forced the Daleks all over the ship to spin – first one way, then the other. "How did you two think of that? That's brilliant!"

The two smirked, glancing at each other before looking at him pointedly. "You mean why didn't **you** think of that?" Their grins turned positively wicked.

Donna, the one in the clothes the others had seen earlier, sighed. Up to her to explain things to the other companions, preferably before her rascals started acting all Spacepeople. "He" she pointed at the Doctor "had a spare hand in a jar. Ghastly sight, but he swore he needed it where it was. Anyway, there was this heartbeat I was hearing, starting inside the Shadow Proclamation, and again inside the TARDIS. It kept me inside, and I was trapped. When I thought I was doomed, it seemed to call to me for help, glowing inside its jar. I didn't know what else to do, and so I touched it."

"And boom!" the Duplicates cried as one. "Instant Human-Time Lord biological Meta-Crisis!"

The Duplicate Doctor took up the tale. "We finally had enough genetic material to become a full person, but it was a little confusing trying to balance. We had two sets of DNA, each telling us to be something different. Nearly turned us into a chimera – a person with two different sets of DNA."

"So," the Duplicate Donna picked up immediately, "to resolve all the energy, we split apart. One heart each, which is unfortunate, but viola! Two half-Human Time Lords. Each in appearance identical to one of our parents!"

"Parents?" The cry came from Rose, but the thought was coming from all of the Children of Time.

Not that the Doctor heard Rose. Instead, he took a careful look at them and could see that they both looked much younger than he or Donna. Rassilon, they did look like teenagers! They were wearing their clothes – which were much too big for them since they were shorter – and as full of cheek as him and Donna combined. Oh, blimey, he thought as he remembered the antics he got into at that comparative age. I'm in trouble!

Of course, it was the same kind of trouble he would've been in had Jenny lived, but not to this extent! She was at least physically the equivalent of twenty-something. Eighteen at the youngest.

Donna sighed. "Half him, half me. That makes you and me, Sunshine," she added at the Doctor, "the proud parents of two instant teenagers. Mind, they definitely have the energy of a horde of little kids with the ability of teenagers to listen to their elders." Her eyes glanced in Rose's direction, but she said nothing else. Why draw her ire any more than she already had, just by being around the Doctor? "Which makes them unbearably like you, Doctor."

The Doctor was still frozen over the thought of being a father again. With Donna. To two people that came from his own hand. With Donna! The idea was sending strange flutterings through his chest – a brand new sensation, but not an unpleasant one. **I have kids with **_**Donna**_**!**

The thought was such a squeak in his head, especially on her name, that no enemy of his would've ever again taken the Oncoming Storm seriously had it been voiced.

"The Doctor-Donna," he murmured instead. "The Ood foresaw this."

Donna shrugged. "Perhaps they saw our son coming. Our kids got a lucky glimpse of the future, and altered events. Means I can be this improved, more mature me still."

The Doctor didn't think there was anything wrong with her, even. She just needed a chance to shine. But there was something far more concerning nagging at him. "But if you touched the Hand while it was filled with regeneration energy-"

"Oh, relax, Dad!" the Duplicate Donna snapped. "Our energy did touch her mind, which gave us her memories as well as yours. But we suddenly sensed that if our energy touched her mind too long-"

"She'd have too much of your mind in her head," her brother interjected, "and would be at risk of burning up from too much Time Lord regenerative energy inside her. So we managed to withdraw from her mind, healing her in the process-"

"And which probably gave us an extra dose of her genes," his sister finished. "Thus, how we look!"

It was all too much for even the Doctor to deal with. Mind, he'd deal with all that later. First to save the planets, then stop the Daleks. Or perhaps vice versa. Only then could he deal with two brand-new Time Lord teenagers, their irritated Human mother, and a bunch of confused companions – one of them extremely upset and irrationally jealous.

And completely unaware she was heading right back where she came from. Donna's report about that parallel world was alarming enough. Rose's lack of concern about Donna and freaking out over the twin Duplicates was an even worse omen. He'd asked Donna a slew of questions as they traveled today, trying to piece together how Rose might've crossed over.

The pieces he'd compiled, he thought as he helped his children send the planets home, didn't paint a good picture of Rose's actions. He knew that the machine Donna said Rose created was a result of murdering a TARDIS, something he couldn't forgive no matter the motives. He questioned whether Rose would understand that since he hadn't punished her for raping the TARDIS before.

He'd had a moment, he remembered as he and his children sent the planets home, where he thought about letting the Vortex energy burn her, but the persona created to control it was dangerous – especially having given Jack far too much life energy. He'd felt disappointed enough by her actions toward Mickey and Jack when they'd met, but the realization that she thought nothing of genocide – when she could've used the Vortex energy to send the Daleks somewhere where they couldn't harm anyone – to get back to him killed his love for her.

If she tried to say anything to him at the moment, he would've pushed her aside with a Not Now command. Fortunately, she was busy enjoying pushing the Daleks around with Martha and Sarah Jane. Donna meanwhile was keeping an eye on Davros and looking out for other trouble. And, he realized when he heard Mickey call out a warning to Davros, instructed the men to grab the weapons inside the TARDIS to make the Dalek creator think twice about trying anything.

The Doctor was stunned to learn that Caan was the one responsible for all the manipulated time-lines, but concealed it behind a grim manner. If he'd had more time, he would've applauded the Dalek. Only he could've left Davros inside the Time Lock, so point against him. Especially after Earth was left when the Supreme Dalek disabled the Vault controls. So he raced to prepare the TARDIS...and was struck numb when he felt the Crucible start its self-destruction.

He didn't need the twins to say they'd fulfilled the prophecy to know what happened. He sensed it in his mind – the thoughts of other Time Lords finally filling those empty spaces in his soul. He felt crushed as he ordered everyone inside the TARDIS, knowing that he **had** to lay down a punishment this time. He couldn't let companions or anyone else commit genocide again.

And he offered Davros ones last chance, wanting something good to come out of this mess. But he should've known that the Creator's mind was too twisted by the Time War. "You!" Davros raged. "Never forget! You did this. I name you, forever: Destroyer of worlds!"

Donna suddenly grabbed the emotionally over-burdened Doctor, dragging him toward the TARDIS. "That's your title, Reality-Hater!" she screamed.

"It is complete," Caan said, motionless but absolutely at peace despite the flames and heat around him. "The threefold man at the end of everything... with the Children of Time, and now none of them will die."

The Doctor swallowed, unnerved. But Donna slammed the doors shut. "Get us out of here and save Earth, Spaceman!"

Leave it to her to remind him of what was important. He flashed her a tiny thankful smile and rushed to the controls. Worries about punishments, brand-new teenagers, and problematic companions could wait. He had to protect Earth from a slew of shrapnel.

* * *

The TARDIS was flying Earth back home. The Doctor was guiding five of his companions through guiding the Old Girl through the motions. He gave important tasks to all. Except for Rose. Hers was the least necessary, but it kept her occupied.

Or ought to have. He kept having to call out corrections for the others to make. She spent too much time looking at him with a smile, which he ignored by focusing completely on his tasks. He couldn't wait to have the TARDIS to himself and Donna again...

Donna and Jackie stood nearby, watching the action. The former periodically looked over at her children, who were monitoring something along the sides until the Doctor said they didn't have to. She worried about the Doctor's gutted look when he realized that his own children had set off the chain reaction that would kill all of the Daleks and destroy the Crucible. She remembered the Racnoss all too well, and how he regretted having to kill an entire species to protect Earth, but what else could've been done here? She didn't like the idea of killing any more than he did, but if those controls were losing power as their daughter had said they were, then there could've only been a matter of time before they lost the ability to keep the Daleks frozen. Then what?

And there was the matter of Rose. She had done her best to ignore the twins, and stuck practically to the Doctor's side once he came back inside as the Crucible was going up in flames. Donna no longer saw Rose's coming back as a good thing, and she could tell that the Doctor felt the same. Truth be told, he was hiding his thoughts rather well for someone rubbish with feelings. Whatever happened next would turn into something not what Rose had clearly expected, and so Donna prepared herself to stand between her children and the woman who was – in a sense – responsible for the circumstances of their creation.

Meanwhile, the Duplicates stood grinning, watching the expressions of joy on the faces around them. It was an occasion! Their smiles stood in place until they felt a flicker of grimness from their father.

_He's not happy with us_, he whispered to her, making sure the words didn't reach their father. _Doesn't he realize we were running out of time to stop them?_

His sister shook her head. _He's confused. He knows that it's a necessary violation of galactic laws, but he worries about us being the cause. He's thinking that we might be punished if he's not careful._

His eyes widened. _Oh, don't tell me he's thinking of exiling us as a so-called protection!_

She flinched. _Knowing him, if he hasn't yet, he will soon. And I can guess where to..._

_Oh, no! Not Pete's World! Not under Rose's so-called care! I can see into his memories of Rose's reactions to the Reality Bomb! He knows that Rose might've helped cause some of this! _

_Or **did**, you mean? See how he's avoiding her gaze? He definitely suspects she's at fault._

_Or **at least** made it worse! So how can he think of leaving me with her? Oh, my God! He doesn't think I'd eventually be her husband, does he? That's disgusting! Foisting someone who wanted to be your lover on your son? So what if I set off the explosions! Look at all the things she's done! All the feelings and concerns she's trampled over!_

_Do you think **I** like the idea? That daft bint was a teenager dissatisfied with her own life and boyfriend when she met him! Dad's Ninth self was a ticket out of a boring existence, and did she ever show remorse for causing his death? For drawing the energy out of the TARDIS without the Old Girl's consent? Never mind killing the TARDIS in the parallel world! Just because time had to be reset it don't mean murdering a sentient ship is the answer! We need to remind Dad of how unfit she is to look after anyone! Someone who glared when he hugged Mum out of relief when he didn't regenerate is a possessive, obsessive psycho!_

_Even if we do owe our existence to her..._ His eyes narrowed over the unhappy truth. _Whatever good Rose did is completely overshadowed by her unfeeling actions. Well, we do have that bit of human spark in us. Let's use that to provoke Dad, Mum and Rose. Make Rose react immaturely, to remind Dad of what his feelings really are – that he was better off without her!_

She grinned. _And make Mum react so powerfully, so protectively that he won't dare think again of parting us from her! And then..._

His grin matched hers. _We make them admit to each other what they really feel. That'll make Rose lose any pretence to being a fit companion!_

Mentally shaking hands, they prepared themselves for Operation Stay-Home-and-Bond-Mum-to-Dad. Just get through the celebrations first...


	3. Twin Speaks

**Chapter Three: Twin Speaks**

As the hugging was dying off, with Rose still staying close to the Doctor's side, the twins decided it was time to go on the offensive. A quick mental glance to see who wanted to start, and Duplicate Donna began. "So, Dad," she called out sharply, drawing all conversation and cheering to a halt, "when were you going to tell Mum what you're planning for us? That you're going to exile at least my brother for genocide even though it was a necessary evil?"

Donna stopped the Doctor from replying. "Wait! **Exile**? You mean to Chiswick, right?" She fixed her eyes on the daft Martian.

The Doctor opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He'd seen that intensity in her face before, and no good had come his way from talking any time before when she was in such a state.

The Duplicate Doctor laughed harshly. "Oh, please! That'd be better than what he's thinking of! He's thinking of bloody Pete's World!"

His mother gasped in horror. "**Doctor**!" She marched right in front of him. "Tell me they're imagining things!"

The Doctor swallowed, once again reminded of how hard Donna could slap. "He committed genocide with her help-"

Donna rushed right in front of him. "And so did you! Remember the Empress of the Racnoss? Her children that you drowned by draining the Thames? What other choice did you have then? You said yourself that the controls were going out! How much longer would we have had before we lost all ability to keep those bloody pepper pots from moving and being able to shoot us? Tell me! And tell me what the Shadow Proclamation would've done differently? The Daleks were ripping planets out of time and space, trying to destroy all of Creation! Would that have carried the death penalty?"

The Doctor found himself feeling like he was in a tiny prison, the walls closing in around him. "Well," he spoke in a tiny voice, "for Davros at least, yes."

Jack cut in. "But would they have had enough time to come in? Could they have rounded all of those Daleks up? How many more lives would've been lost if those twins of yours hadn't done what they did?"

The Doctor found no answer. His ship grumbled at him in warning, starting a lecture that would've put a Jewish mother-induced guilt trip to shame.

Sarah Jane stepped forward, vaguely noting the tone of the TARDIS background humming had taken a rather dark tone. "We're not saying that it's good. I saw that the Daleks were once something else, but once any beings have killed that many people, present that much of a danger, how many chances can you afford to give them? How many do you think my planet, especially in its current state, can give?"

The Doctor cleared his throat. He tried to find the answer that would explain his feelings, but his ship hadn't let up in her sharp admonishments.

Duplicate Donna sighed. "This reminded you too much of the Time War, didn't it?"

Her father cringed.

Duplicate Doctor nodded grimly. "And there's all those things that Davros and Caan made you face. You're feeling guilty, but you can't punish yourself because there are things you know you still have to do."

"And," his sister added, "therefore you can't endure the punishment you feel you deserve. So we're convenient scapegoats."

"Never mind," Duplicate Doctor continued, tone turning as chilly as his mother's in anger, "that Rose committed genocide against the Daleks after ripping the TARDIS open **without** the Old Girl's permission. **She** got to keep traveling with you and you're thinking of exiling **me**?"

The Doctor's face turned so pale his freckles looked like they were about to turn black. He felt reprimanded enough by his daughter's words. His son's took things twenty levels higher. So when he saw the flash of incandescent anger in Donna's eyes, he just waited for the inevitable. He knew he deserved it for even thinking what he had.

Donna saw fury, brighter than any red giant star. Her hand flew to the Doctor's cheek, ringing louder than an alarm and moving him more than her second slap had the day they met. She knew he saw it coming, but he didn't even try to duck. It was instinctive for her, but she wasn't going to go beyond that. Once would make her point.

Rose cried out in dismay, rushing to the Doctor's side. "Stop it! He doesn't deserve that!" Although, she thought, if Donna was slapping him, that meant she was angry with him, and might readily leave and take those clones she called the Doctor's children with her. Although sending them off to the parallel world didn't seem like a bad idea – they and their delusions would be away from the Doctor. Maybe he could send Donna with them. That sweet grandfather of hers might be hurt, but her mother surely wouldn't miss her.

And what, she faintly wondered, was that male clone talking about? How did one ask the TARDIS for permission? A sentient machine wasn't the same as a sentient person.

Donna glared at her, stopping her short. "He thought he did," she all but growled, "and I agree." She turned her version of the Oncoming Storm on the Doctor. "How **dare** you, Doctor? Look at them! They're kids! They know what they've done, and aren't proud of it. Just like you! But they're your kids, Doctor! They're the only link you have left to your people, and you'd just send them away?"

The Doctor swallowed. She was right. It felt wonderful to have someone filling those empty spaces in his mind. His resolve wavered.

Searching for anything to make sure he changed his mind, she stumbled onto a painful memory, and allowed it a voice. "And may I remind you about the Library!"

He blanched. Oh, no...

Donna's eyes filled with tears. "You," she loudly whispered, "haven't even thought that this would deny me what might be my **only** chance to be a mother!"

He sank in his shoes. No, hadn't thought of that. So, no, he couldn't. He couldn't take away people she loved. Especially not her children. Which the Duplicates clearly were.

The room was silent, trying to follow what was happening. There was an adventure that none of them knew about, and most were smart enough to not ask. Rose didn't care to ask – it didn't matter to her what the clones were to Donna. Being accidents, they could hardly mean anything to the Doctor, after all.

Pulling herself together as she saw his pain, Donna took a deep breath. "Feel any better, Spaceman? Had enough punishment?"

The Doctor looked into his soul as far as he dared under the circumstances. Nothing had changed, which drove his mood even further down. Or was that from the need to step away from Rose's touch?

The twins sighed and shook their heads. "Nothing?" they asked. "Not a bit?"

Rose shook her head, puzzled as she followed the Doctor's steps. "But what has he done that he needs to regret? What do they have to do with anything now that the universe is safe?"

The Doctor's expression became pained as he looked at her in disbelief. It brought back awful memories, and made him wonder if he'd misjudged Rose's good qualities. Did she really see him as a perfect man, despite the evidence that he was an alien with some decidedly non-human traits? Especially when she seemed to want him to live as a human? And just dismissing his children's existence?

She wasn't fit to watch over herself, he realized, let alone two half-Time Lords. His efforts to improve her thinking had been for naught. Ten years in Pete's World, and she hadn't let go. His hearts felt instantly heavy, feeling his failure to encourage her toward true good.

Donna gaped at her, not believing that the companion he'd acted so lost without was such an idiot. Was she deaf or something? She glanced at him, relieved to see that he was horrified with himself.

The twins glared at Rose. The only good thing out of her comments, they thought at each other, was that their father had clearly abandoned his plans.

Rose blinked over the Doctor's unhappy expression. "What's wrong?" What reason did he have to be so unhappy now? Earth was restored, and she was back! What else could there be to do?

Donna shook her head. How oblivious to other's feelings – especially those of the person you claimed to love – could someone be? "I saw him commit genocide to save Earth the day I met him. An old enemy – a menace, I think he called the Racnoss – who would've killed everything on Earth. He had to destroy a ship and its a fleet of little ones to protect Earth, nearly getting himself killed in the process. He's shown biased thinking that I've had to slap him out of – physically or verbally or even both. He's basically a bloke in alien form. No one is perfect, and he really needs someone to keep him from getting too big for his boots, to keep him from sinking into reckless patterns. Surely you saw some of that!" At least, Donna thought, I **hope** you did.

Rose frowned. "Well, deaths happen. But he's the Doctor. The most important man in the universe. He deserves to be treated with respect."

The Doctor took a step away from Rose, horrified that she thought he didn't make mistakes. Hadn't she called him on some as Nine?

"Oi! Listen here, you daft bint!" Duplicate Donna cried, stomping over and driving Rose several steps back from unease. "My mother has seen him at his worst and best, and so you should have too. Yet you don't know how bad it is to treat someone like they can't do anything wrong? To flatter their ego like some idol?"

That her accent sounded more like the one that people heard from this Doctor was still a bit of a surprise to everyone's ears. But the fire seemed entirely Donna's, and it frightened Rose enough to drive her to her mother's side.

_Time's getting short, sister_, the Duplicate Doctor cautioned. _We have to try something deeper on Mum and Dad._

_Yes, we do._ They were safe from exile, thanks to Rose's comments and their mother's outburst. Now to make the Doctor and Donna face a different music. "Besides, there are a lot of things my parents don't yet know."

The Doctor blinked. He had to get his companions – especially Rose and Jackie – home, but his curiosity was engaged. "Like what?"

The Duplicate Doctor walked next to Donna, standing between his parents. He grinned, happy to have the chance to be the one explaining basics of a situation. "One thing about Time Lords: they can recognize a fixed event – something that must always happen – immediately, but when they have no idea what the must moments that made the fixed event possible and stable were, they can say **really** stupid things to the people around them."

"Like what?" Donna beat the others to the question, but she was wondering what point her bonkers son intended to make.

He grinned wryly at his father. "Oh, like telling someone who's very special that there's nothing special about them and be a total prat."

Donna's eyes flickered to the Doctor's with a glare. Oh, was that what those words on that rooftop were about?

The Doctor blushed and stared at his shoes. Oh, did he wish those words unsaid!

The Children of Time wondered what had happened, but no one had the chance to ask anything. The Duplicate Doctor was too quick to continue. "Also, they can make someone who has to be there for must moments and a few fixed points think that they're more important than they are, but that's not for here." He glanced at Rose, and saw that she hadn't connected the dots.

_Big surprise_, his sister groaned silently, glaring again at Rose when she opened her mouth. But she could tell the others were putting things together.

Shaking his head, he faced his mother as he continued. "More to the point, my father is absolutely rubbish with expressing his feelings – as you know well, Mum. The Time Lords really were a repressed people, and that's skewed my father's thinking in many ways. You've seen proof many times over, Mum. What you don't know is that it's made him say things to you when he really meant the exact opposite."

Donna blinked, trying to put all these random pieced together. "Like what?"

The Doctor worried about what his son intended to say. There were a lot of things. He could list them all. He opened his mouth to speak, but found his daughter's hand in his way. She smirked at him, shaking her head.

"Oh, Mum... Remember 'I mean the Detox'?"

The Children of Time had no clue what that meant, but Jack was instantly very intrigued and determined to know the story. Mickey watched the Doctor's utterly embarrassed reaction and suddenly had a new respect and empathy for the alien. Martha's eyebrows raised, suddenly wondering about some of the Doctor's reactions during the Sontaran crisis. Sarah Jane, on the other hand, had definitely connected the dots and wanted to know what would happen next.

Donna's jaw dropped and her eyes fixed on the utterly embarrassed Spaceman, who rubbed his hair and neck in succession to handle the rush of nervous energy. Rose didn't like seeing him so uncomfortable over something he'd done. Unless it was a mistake that he was ashamed of. Yes, she silently breathed, that must be it.

Their son was amused by his parents' reactions. "Mum, think about it. If his feelings had been what you think they are or were, then would he have been laughing and smiling with you so soon after all that had happened to him on the day you both met? No, his grief was over the lives lost in that fixed event known as the Battle of Canary Wharf. You were able to draw him out of his dark thoughts. You saved his life, which saved the universe, and enabled us to be alive."

Rose shook her head. Well, of course the Doctor was upset over the lives lost. She knew that. But she was sure his real hurt was over losing her, not what this clone was saying! She opened her mouth and got an icy look from the female clone that froze her in place.

All the talk about her needing to save him from his thoughts was something Donna had known for a while. But the part about him laughing and smiling? "But he's always hiding his feelings behind a smile and a long string of words."

"Not like that." He tapped his temple. "If it's in his head, it's in mine. So I know what he was really thinking and feeling at the time - and ever since – about you. And the truth isn't what you think it is, Mum."

Donna noticed how deep the blush on the Doctor's face turned, his eyes were wider than dinner plates. Her mouth turned into a huge circle, not sure it was a good thing or a bad thing that she would hear his real thoughts.

In the back of her head, she wondered why Rose was so silent. After all, wasn't this threatening her views about the Doctor? A brief glance answered that question.

Jackie, sensing that something would happen that her daughter wouldn't like, clamped a hand over Rose's mouth at the Duplicate Doctor's words and hoped her glare would be enough to persuade the ungrateful girl her daughter had turned into that it was wise to remain quiet. And she was glad that the handsome captain – oh, she was a _bit_ sorry she had reformed and was married again since he seemed like he would've been fun to flirt with – was standing nearby and helped hold Rose back.

"And not because he thinks any of those things you think about yourself," their son stressed. "He looks at you with awe, Mum. He wishes he had even a fraction of your compassion, your ability to see those little things that have solved so many of the problems you two have faced. You don't know how much he wishes he'd yelled at your mother and all those at the reception for starting without you – especially when you'd vanished in a way that no human could've managed. How he wishes he could've punished Lance himself, giving him a fate worse than death for making you doubt yourself and cry because you felt no one would listen to you."

Rose, squirming against the hands restraining her, figured that was more of a sign of what kind of a person Donna was. How could a person be special if the people around them would do that to them?

Donna wished that he wouldn't speak of that moment. But she also noticed the look in the Doctor's eyes, which told her their son was telling the truth, and that grabbed her attention. She'd been mortified when he'd been present for Lance berating her for preferring going for a packet of a new Pringles flavour than sex. She hadn't wanted to admit to Lance – let alone a strange alien – that there were things she wouldn't do without marriage, not after the lying she'd done to fit in with the friends she'd kept.

Their son's smile turned soft, burdened with the sad memories he now had to speak of. He touched his mother's shoulders with every bit of affection he could. "If you only knew how it cuts Dad to his hearts to see you cry, especially when he's unintentionally caused it. How panicked he got when he thought that you wanted to go home, leaving him behind. How he wouldn't hesitate to tear things apart to get to you each time you've been taken from his sight. How his hearts lighten when you smile and laugh – to a greater degree than anyone else ever managed."

Rose tried to pull away from the grips of her mother and Jack, but the Duplicate Donna's eyes flickered her way again, stopping her short. The fire she saw drained all ability to speak or fight. It was the most terrifying look she'd ever seen. She suddenly had a flicker of comprehension about why the Doctor was known as the Oncoming Storm, even if the look seemed like something that would come from the last Doctor's eyes.

But, still, that clone who wore her Doctor's face was wrong. No chance the Doctor felt any of that!

Neither Donna nor the Doctor saw Rose's reaction. Nor anyone else's. Donna could only see his blushing and intense look, he could only see her shock and disbelief.

The Duplicate Doctor kept his eyes on his mother. His sister told him to get to the point, before Rose recovered her ability to speak. "Yes, Mum. You've been a breath of fresh air that's made him happier than he's ever been. You've helped him start to let go of a lot of his past, and reminded him that he can sit with the quiet and not be consumed by his regrets. He never felt able to sit so before you. You have made him feel alive again, find hope in his soul. As hard as it is to live with what he's done, you make him feel that he could one day forgive himself. He had no idea he needed to have the rug pulled out from under his feet because he does fail to see important options – and things about reality. He needs it now. He doesn't want a companion who flatters his ego." His tone made it clear that at least one such was in the room. He also knew that the one who was the worst offender wouldn't see their folly in it. "After all, he can blow his own trumpet."

Pausing as he realized what an unintentional innuendo he made, he turned to glare at the person whose thoughts made that discovery possible. His sister joined in shouting, "**Don't**, Jack!"

The Boe-Kind tried to look innocent. The other companions closed their eyes and groaned. Rose would've been more uneasy had she not remembered Jack wouldn't hug Donna.

Sighing, the Duplicate Doctor turned back to his mother and continued. "You've never flattered him. You never speak anything but what you see as the truth to him, even if it might hurt him. The only time you censor your words is when he's really hurting and you want to help him with the truth. You laugh at him, make him laugh at himself, but you've never mocked him when he has some genuine complaint. Some have." His tone again hinted strongly at who had done it. "But you, Donna Noble, have proved to be the most important companion. The Most Important Woman in the Whole of Creation, for making it possible to stop its destruction, but certainly in the Doctor's universe. Can you see that in his eyes?"

She could. Her heart suddenly told her one thing, but her head – filed with all the doubts of her lifetime – told her she had to be imagining things because of the near-death of Creation. Her son, too.

The Doctor's eyes were fixed on Donna's disbelieving ones. Wait, I'm not a good emotional liar. How can she doubt it when my feelings have been exposed?

The Duplicate Donna took up the battle, with her eyes fixed on her father. "You see that she's having trouble believing what's in your eyes. She – like you – spent her childhood being forced into a role that she didn't want, knew in her soul wasn't for her. She was berated all her life by one who is very like her, because she was seen as a failure for not finding a career and a husband. She doesn't believe in fate and destiny, and yet she spent her life seeking it. She wanted badly to feel needed, to feel magnificent. Only when you came along, showing her a bit of the universe and saving her from danger, did she _ever_ feel that way. She wanted so badly to accept your request to go with you."

The Doctor blinked rapidly, not quite believing his ears. "But I scared her, so she said no."

His daughter shook her head. "That wasn't the real reason. Yes, the whole thing of being shown that aliens existed and her fiancée was planning to feed her to a giant spider would've overwhelmed anyone – but she could've moved past that. She managed it over the Adipose mess and the Ood Planet, didn't she? No, that wasn't it."

Donna's eyes widened and she moved her hands frantically. Her son waved his hands to try to keep her quiet. _Hurry up_, he shouted at his sister.

Neither had to worry. Donna's throat wouldn't let her make a sound.

"In the space of several hours, she'd had her heart broken, yes, and seemingly lost everything. But she gained the knowledge that she could make a difference. More importantly, she experienced something so suddenly, so powerfully that it took her breath away and left her frightened of herself. Because she felt like her heart was healing already because of you. You gave her proof that she would be fine, that she was worth something despite what Lance said about her. You saw her at her worst, her lowest, and you still saw someone worth boosting the spirits of. You even made her like Christmas for the first time in her adult life. But those things that she felt in reaction to you as a person, as a male being? That terrified her into saying no."

The Doctor's jaw dropped and he stared at his daughter in shock. She couldn't be saying what it sounded like, could she? A glance Donna's way froze him solid, seeing the growing blush – which stopped all thought processes in his thick brain.

She smiled sadly at him. "She sees herself as so far beneath you that she absolutely had to keep her feelings hidden. The suddenness of it all was another factor driving her to hide. But once she was in Egypt, she knew that she should've soldiered through and gone with you. She knew that you needed someone to stop you, and that you needed a friend who cared enough and respected you as a person enough to be honest about what they thought you were doing. So she looked for you, not daring to hope for anything more than to be that friend."

It was Jackie's turn to glare harshly at Rose to keep her silent and still. She watched her daughter's disbelieving face, and once again felt a wave of dismay as she realized how far short she'd come in parenting the girl who had been her only link to Pete for twenty years.

The other Children of Time listened and watched in amazement. Donna was rising in their esteem by the moment, showing herself as capable of personal sacrifice as any of them for the Doctor's sake. But hers seemed to run deeper.

The Duplicate Donna continued her tale. "Just like you use smiles and a multitude of words to hide behind, she uses her bolshy side. It allowed her to hide the disappointment she wouldn't let herself acknowledge she felt when you talked about Martha and how you messed that up." A quiet snort from the peanut gallery reminded the room that it wasn't forgotten – even if the young physician had moved on. "She told herself it didn't matter; she was getting to be someone important, and would get to see more of the wonders that you opened her eyes to. That there were horrors to go with them didn't surprise her, but your reactions to them sometimes did. She gives you credit for being a better person than you think you are, and encourages you to challenge your own thinking because it's good for you. And you have tried to live up to her thinking, haven't you? That you listen has earned more of her respect – and made those other feelings stronger."

Donna's face wasn't trying to match her hair – it was trying to turn an even deeper shade. She'd lost her voice over hearing her most secret feelings aired in front of not just the Doctor, but in front of his companions. Especially the one who she was sure would toss her back to Chiswick because she wanted the Doctor to herself. If she could get past the twins and the TARDIS.

The Doctor's eyes drifted back to Donna's face. Her blushing that much meant that something intensely personal had been exposed. He swallowed dryly at the implications.

"Mum wishes you were more careful with your life," their daughter added. "You have no idea how terrified she was when she thought you were going to die from that poison. She came up with that shock because she was **sure** that it was the last thing you would've wanted, let alone expected from her given all she'd said. You don't know how much it hurt to have been forced to forget you when she was trapped in that computer, or feeling like a fifth wheel... before then." She cleared her throat, not wanting to go there and positive that her family agreed. "She knows she sticks her foot in it sometimes, and wishes she didn't when you really need a comforting word. She doesn't feel confident that she'll be able to tell when you need a simple 'I'm so sorry' as opposed to a reminder that you have someone who will listen. She wants you to be happy, and would gladly die for you or step aside for another if it would make a difference."

The Doctor hissed, paling completely over the thought of losing Donna. He'd been faced with the threat more times than he'd cared to admit to. Even the chance of losing her to those Roboforms the day they met had left his heart feeling wrung out – and he hadn't understood it then.

In the Library, he finally did. Proof he had the worst timing. Ever.

"So there she stands, Dad," the Duplicate Donna resumed, knowing she had to drag him out of his thoughts again, "filled with the stubbornness to carry on no matter what her detractors say, but filled with the belief that no one other than her grandfather thinks she's worthy of anything good. Between her mother, the boyfriends who turned out to be no-good, the so-called friends who bring each other down, and a society that not only doesn't like gingers but also has made her convinced she's overweight, her resilience is something to marvel at. She's found a calling – something she's been seeking all her life – in traveling with you, and she wasn't about to let it slip through her fingers because of what she thinks are unrequited feelings on her part."

Donna covered her face. She couldn't bear to see the reactions of the others. Martha might understand, but the Doctor? Never mind the jealous bint being held back by her own mother and Jack. Spaceman surely couldn't want her, no matter what her son just said! At least Jackie was kind enough to cover her daughter's mouth.

"And that feeling of not being worthy is so strong she doesn't believe – even after all my brother just said – you _could_ love her."

The Doctor's face fell again and his eyes fixed on Donna's face. His chest felt like his hearts were trying to decide whether to sink into his stomach or lurch into his throat. The fluttering he sensed was something entirely new to him.

The twins exchanged a satisfied look. The Duplicate Doctor tried to guide his mother toward his father, but she was digging her heals in, refusing to move. So the Duplicate Donna sighed and walked behind her father. "There's one thing you can say that'll start you both on a healing path. The question is, are you willing to finish what the Meta-Crisis started in your minds?" With that, she shoved him hard toward Donna.


	4. The Oncoming Husband, Part 1

**Author's Note**: Took some inspiration from MAAN for this chapter. Some might've noticed. ;) This chapter gets a special dedication to cassikat, who practically begged for this to be posted.

I'm about to start a challenge I set for myself: write 31 Doctor Who short stories in May. Wish me luck! I'll still be editing and polishing and adding to this story - never fear! :D  
Author'sTook some

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**Chapter Four: The Oncoming Husband, Part 1**

Donna kept her hands over her face, wishing she could move back. But her son wasn't letting her. She would've yelled at him, but she didn't trust her voice after what her daughter exposed.

The Children of Time watched, unsure what was about to happen. Rose certainly wanted to do something to challenge what those brat clones were saying, but Jack and her mother decided to interfere!

The Doctor wished he could see Donna's eyes, but her posture spoke volumes. For the first time in his long life, he had no idea what might happen because of the moment's events, but there was only one thing his soul would let him do – and for once, it was exactly what his hearts wanted. He took a deep breath to fortify himself. Then he leaned in close to her left ear and whispered.

Donna felt someone lean in, and tensed. Then she heard and felt the whisper in the Doctor's voice, and something new entered her mind. She realized she could hear thoughts that weren't her own. Thoughts about her, concerned for her, and filled with- Her jaw dropped when she realized that she had heard something that wasn't English and yet she understood it. What's, she thought, happening?

The Doctor felt Donna's insecurities and fears flood into his awareness, and tried to let her sense his own feelings. _Donna, it's me. The Doctor._

She tentatively lowered her hands to see his eyes, needing the visual part of the explanation. How-?

_Our minds are linked, bonded. Right now we can hear pretty much anything the other is thinking._

Donna tried to think in the way he seemed to be in her head, aiming it at him. _What, like for a few hours?_

He managed a tiny smile at her nervous question. _At the moment, it's a bit overactive, but...it's for life._

_Life?_ She blinked at him. _That sounds a lot like-_

_Marriage? That's because it **is** a marriage bond. I told you my name._

Donna stared at him in astonishment. He'd reluctantly told her once about how Gallifreyan marriages worked, and she'd felt awful that he'd had to be bonded to two different women he didn't want. Had he willingly told her? _You...actually want this? You actually want...me? Loud, opinionated, plump me? _She shook her head, not trusting that she wasn't suddenly dreaming. That seemed more likely than her deepest wish coming true; that never happened to her.

He looked as deeply into her eyes as he could, feeling ready to jump from the nerves hitting him from every angle. But the sadness in her mind brought tears to his eyes. _Donna Eileen Noble, you're the only woman I can truly say...I love. There was no forcing in that. You were just you, and I need you._

The rush of feelings, the images floating into her mind weren't things Donna's most fevered moments of imagination could create. She wasn't dreaming. It was really happening. He really did mean it. She gasped, choking on a flood of tears and a slew of emotions.

The Doctor felt his hearts breaking over her tears. _Please don't cry._ But he knew his plea wasn't going to halt the flow. Only one thing could. So he quickly and gently cupped her face and kissed her tenderly, trying to delicately wrap her mentally in his love.

Tears fell anyway, but Donna's heart wanted to take flight. She could never have pictured feeling such hope and peace in her soul. She slowly returned the kiss, feeling him deepen it as she became more and more engaged in the act.

Martha and Sarah Jane were stunned at the intensity of the moment before them. Mickey and Jack's eyes widened at the sight of the Doctor acting on his own feelings, being so clearly devoted to someone. Jackie, for all she had wanted her daughter to be happy, was relieved to see that the Doctor was smart enough to not want Rose, that he had chosen a **woman** for his mate – her daughter just wasn't mature enough for anything serious.

Rose, meanwhile, was frozen from shock. The horror of seeing the Doctor just snog anyone was bad enough, but this the ginger who all the time-lines seemed to converge upon, who'd produced two clones! What did this mean?

The Duplicates beamed at each other. They moved closer to bump knuckles. _We're good_, he said.

_We certainly are!_ She nodded smugly.

The Doctor's arms wrapped around Donna as hers slid over his shoulders, fusing their bodies tighter than a zipper could two sides of a jacket. The shared feelings were a whirlpool of sensations and thoughts, drawing them further away mentally from the world around them. Her fingers tangled in his hair, which nearly drew a groan from him, compelling him to deepen the kiss enough to make her knees unsteady.

Aware as she was that the scalp was a sensitive area for men, she hadn't thought it would be even more powerful for him. He had no idea of any of his erogenous zones, so the shock was immense. Not that he was complaining – this was a journey of discovery that he was eager to begin with her!

Jack would've gladly let them carry on, but when the kiss passed the thirty-second mark, his time senses told him that there were things the Doctor had to do. But how to interrupt what had to be the most beautiful moment of the Doctor's life? He figured it would probably be when Donna's human lungs couldn't give her enough air.

Although he noticed the Duplicates starting to look a bit uncomfortable watching the moment. Yes, seeing your parents as sexual beings could be very awkward.

Unfortunately, Rose found her strength at that moment and managed to shake the hands off her mouth. "Doctor!"

Her voice sort of breached their moment, mostly from the surprise of suddenly hearing something when there had been silence except in their shared mental state. Their lips parted, and they stared at each other in a happy, dazed shock. But they didn't let go. Instead, he slid an arm around her shoulders as she grabbed that hand with hers, tightening her other arm around his waist to keep her balance, and his free hand slid into his pocket as he turned slightly to face the agog Children of Time. The Doctor finally managed to turn his head to talk. "What? Did someone speak?"

His voice was higher-pitched than normal, and the look on his face spoke of interrupted ecstasy. Donna's was that of a woman whose wildest dream – and fantasy – had just come true, and she was exhaling through her mouth as thought it would help corral her reactions.

Jack couldn't suppress his laughter. If he hadn't witnessed the whole thing, he would've sworn that the Doctor and Donna had just made love.

Which they clearly had – without the other aspects.

Everyone looked at him strangely. The nature of the strange looks varied. The newlyweds were still too dazed to be offended, the Duplicates were almost glaring at him for mocking their parents, Mickey was trying to hide his own amusement over the Doctor's expression, Sarah Jane was a little disgusted over the thought of laughing at such a beautiful moment, Martha was losing her own amusement, and Jackie was giving Jack a you're-not-helping glare.

Rose, on the other hand, was appalled. "What's so funny about the Doctor kissing someone? He's practically swanned off with another woman! She's just a temp!"

That snapped the Doctor out of his dazed mood, and firmly settled a grim one in its place. "Donna Noble," he answered tightly, pulling her closer against his side to re-enforce his words with touch and emotion toward his wife, "was never 'just' anything. And may I remind you, Rose Tyler, that you were a shop girl. I think that makes Donna technically higher on the social ladder than you, if I'm not mistaken. And I rarely am when it comes to hierarchies." _Because I hate them so much_, he added silently to his wife, drawing a grin and a mental snort.

Rose flushed – stunned that her Doctor had reminded her of how boring her life had been, and horrified over how he was defending the ginger, even ranking her higher socially. And worst of all, he still wouldn't let go of her!

"And," the Doctor added, each word measured to restrain his irritation, "I never swanned off with anyone. That assumes I was with someone else to begin with."

"But you were!" Rose's eyes were wider than a child's in a giant candy shop. "You were with me!"

The Doctor blinked. When **had** he said that? He knew he'd never said that!

_Doctor_, Donna reminded him, remembering something else as she tried to send him calm energy, _you said that Jackie was pregnant the last time you saw Rose. Don't we have to get them home?_

It wasn't that she felt threatened by Rose. Not anymore – that was impossible since she'd felt his feelings, and knew exactly where each of them stood with him. But the longer the girl was allowed to think the Doctor still loved her...if he ever had since regenerating...the worse the reaction would be.

_Yeah_, he sighed, grateful she reminded him. _Dimensional retro-closure, since the Reality Bomb never happened now._ He looked into her eyes. _Feel up to helping bring the TARDIS to the parallel world while I deal with Rose?_

_Gladly, Spaceman._ She smiled at him, understanding that forcing Rose Tyler to grasp – even remotely – why she was being left behind was going to be one of the most unpleasant tasks of his long life. _And then we'll put our trouble-makers into their place._

_Oh, yes. Making the Duplicates pay a bit for embarrassing us both in front of my friends._ He grimaced. _Yes, we'll need to. But first things first._ He stole a quick and intense – but loving – kiss, mentally grinning at her lack of surprise. Not to mention her enthusiasm in returning it. Fortification for his next actions.

"That's enough, Doctor!"

The kiss broke, drawing the couple to glare at the indignant blonde's cry.

Rose couldn't pull away from Jack, but she shook her mother off. That kiss had to mean nothing to the Doctor, she swore to herself. "You've let her down gently with a kiss. Now it's time to send her home!"

"Excuse me?" shouted Jackie. "How could those kisses possibly be let-downs for Donna? Especially not that first one! That was probably the most romantic and steamiest I've ever witnessed," she added, making the couple in question blush from the compliment. A few snickers escaped the peanut gallery.

"Well, what else could that be?" Rose couldn't believe her mother – of all people! – was on Donna's side. "She's not even pretty, she's ginger, and she's fat!"

Donna, as boosted as she was from knowing she was loved as she was, couldn't help the flinch over words spoken many times over her life.

"Rose!" Jackie was mortified over her daughter's words. She opened her mouth to shout, trying to quiet her, when the Doctor interrupted.

"Let me deal with this, Jackie." The Doctor mentally and physically hugged Donna. _Go get things started, my love._ As she pulled away to help (with a smile at his name for her), he looked at his other companions. "Martha, Mickey, Sarah Jane, you're needed at the Controls."

The three went eagerly, glad to be out of the line of fire. They were willing to follow whatever instructions the Duplicates and Donna had for them. Basically holding levers steady and watching some readings, but the promise of doing more was mentioned. It meant that all six stations would be manned.

Rose was relieved that Donna walked away from the Doctor, but puzzled. "How can Donna know what to do without you, Doctor, or those weird twin clones telling her? Didn't you say that she's stupid?"

Anger flared deeply inside four people over that, and one of them walked to within a few feet of Rose. "Clearly," the Doctor interrupted, as he heard and felt the TARDIS – loudly grumbling with her own negative feelings – preparing for flight, "I called the wrong person Idiot."

She blinked. "Excuse me?"

He thrust his other hand into his pocket, keeping them firmly at his sides. He no longer trusted, even with Donna's calming influence in his mind, that he wouldn't lower himself in anger to hitting Rose. Ungentlemanly as it would be, the urge was growing, but he was determined to be better than that. He groaned loudly, although it didn't muffle the TARDIS' whirred growl, or Donna calling out, "Releasing the handbrake!" The ship took off, forcing the four not holding on to anything to stabilize themselves against the wobbling, but the journey leveled out quickly – although the shaking remained a steady backdrop.

Once things had leveled out, he continued his thought aloud. "You heard me. Back in the Vault, I didn't touch the force field, but you did. I told you to not even try to come back, but you did."

"Because I love you and you love me!"

All eyes were on her. None could quite believe their ears. Although the Doctor and the twins weren't as shocked as the rest. "When," he ground out, "did I ever say that? The closest I ever came was reacting to what that one Dalek thought."

"But he was right! You gave up a life to save me!"

That was one of the last things he wanted to think about. He shrugged. "I've given up a life to save another companion. A woman." Okay, maybe a bit of an exaggeration where Peri was concerned, but Rose didn't need to know that.

Meanwhile, Donna and the twins – who managed to whisper through the bond about Peri's story to their mother – were quietly giving instructions and trying to ignore the train wreck taking place so close by. But most bipedal beings are attracted to watching awful events, and this one promised to explain a lot to each of them.

The matter-of-fact delivery – not to mention the additional proof that she wasn't special – threw Rose, but only for a few seconds. "And then you said you'd imprinted on me!"

"Post-Regeneration Sickness," he promptly retorted. "Can't take anything I say seriously until I've recovered. I've done some insane things under its influence, even for me. That was me acknowledging – in a very stupid way – that I still remembered you."

Rose blinked, but wasn't deterred. "You woke up when I whispered 'Help me' in your ear!"

He sighed, shaking his head. "The Old Girl had already alerted me. I happened to recover enough energy just as you did that. Coincidence, Rose."

Her mind jumped to the next moment. "But you kissed me on New Earth!"

"That," he snapped, shuddering, "was me kissing the person who'd possessed your body in a foolish effort to free you. Waste of my time, it turned out." And yet another moment, he silently added, where I perhaps should've thought about dropping you back home, or worse...

That dismissal stung, but Rose supposed the memory of being possessed himself was the source. "You freaked out when my face vanished!"

"Anyone who cared about another's welfare would've been alarmed!" he snapped. "I still haven't figured out how those people survived without noses or mouths!"

Rose couldn't remember such sharpness directed at herself. Others, yes, but never her. Still, more moments came forward, supporting her beliefs. "Well, your alarmed face over my saying we'd have to get a mortgage? You'd just realized that you needed to marry me!"

Donna spluttered, which created a slight bump in the ride. She managed to correct it, with the others' help.

The Doctor felt bile creeping up his throat, and the Storm building inside his hearts. "I'd just lost my most faithful companion ever, my dear ship, and you practically dismissed my grief! And not for the first time. When I told you that I'd lost my homeworld, you acted like I should move on with your help! Nothing like sympathy or empathy from you! Oh, no, you had to act like you were more than enough to help me! And **marry** you? I was getting tired of traveling with you, and the very thought of being stuck **without** the TARDIS and **with** you made me sick! I'd have sooner tried to shag Davros!"

Even Jack gagged at that thought.

Rose struggled harder against Jack's grip, trying to break free. Surely her touch would snap him out of this madness! "But over that link! You were going to say you loved me! That was how that sentence was going to end! It had to be! You screamed my name as I fell toward the Void!"

The Doctor took a long breath to compose himself so his words would remain calm. This was worse than he'd thought – she wasn't really hearing a thing he said that contradicted her beliefs. Now he had to wonder if he'd truly gotten all of the Bad Wolf out of her. "That screaming was shock. The Void isn't a place I'd wish on anyone. As for that link, what I was going to say was, 'Rose Tyler, thank you for the good times. I hope you grow up and have a good life.'" He hadn't been able to make himself say the harsher things she really deserved – he was hoping that being trapped in the parallel world would force her to grow up. It obviously hadn't.

She shook her head. "No, this has to be Post-Regeneration Sickness. You can't mean any of that!"

"That cannon," he said, changing the subject. "You've been using it for a while. How long?"

Not that she listened. Again. "Doctor, this Donna has done something to you! Surely you can-"

"How. Long. Have. You. Been. Using. The. Cannon?"

The shout rendered Rose speechless. He'd never snapped at her!

Jackie groaned. "Oh...she was looking into building it ever since your message, Doctor."

Which made him face-palm himself. Oh, he was an idiot!

His wife held even her mental tongue, thanks to being told how to put up walls to keep things private despite the newness of the bond. Although she would say something to him later!

"So she flirted her way to getting people to help her build this thing, and then test it. As for actually trying to travel by it?" Jackie sighed miserably. "I'd say off and on the past three years."

Now the Doctor let a bit of the building Storm come out to play. "That might explain how Dalek Caan found his way inside the Time Lock. It wasn't just the barriers between the universes that were breaking down. It was also the ones that really shouldn't be broken down – not without endangering the whole universe just by coming back." He glared at her. "I should've stuck with my words after my battle with the Sycorax. 'No second chances. That's the sort of man I am.' How many second chances did I give you? Far more than anyone else, and for what?"

Jack's eyes widened. This was more serious than he'd thought. He had the feeling that Rose was about to face some home truths that weren't going to be happy for anyone. Although the Duplicates might take a grim pleasure in hearing it, if the way they were occasionally shooting a nasty glare toward Rose was any indication.

The thing was he couldn't blame them. He found it extremely difficult to like someone if he heard them call another person a clone. Not just because it was rude, but...well, he hated to think about it. Now he wondered how Rose would react to him if she knew the truth, and he didn't think he really wanted to know. So he stayed silent, feeling his opinion of Rose sinking to a point unworthy of a gutter, and regretted refusing Donna's hug earlier – if the Doctor's reactions were anything to go by, she gave lovely ones.

"I know you overheard me talking about how travel between the worlds would hurt the fabric of space. I even told you that you couldn't see me again, and how did you react? A dismissive 'So?'! And you used a device that shoots people through the universe! A tryst isn't worth the death of the universe, and the only person I would get a mortgage with? I just married her."

Rose spluttered. "Married! I didn't see a ring or a minister!"

"You don't need them when you're a Time Lord," the Duplicate Doctor snapped, not bothering to look back her way.

His sister didn't look away from her tasks to deliver her own hit. "Face it: he was never into you! Get told!"

"Oh, shut up, you little-!"

"You shut up, Rose Tyler!"


	5. The Oncoming Husband, Part 2

**Author's Note:** Violence within.

* * *

**Chapter 5: The Oncoming Husband, Part 2**

The Doctor's roar silenced the Control Room. Even the TARDIS humming dulled a bit. Finally, Rose was silenced again. It was a blessed relief. He pulled out his Sonic and scanned Rose. He couldn't find any trace of the Bad Wolf within her, thankfully. He did find something else. "Jackie, the TARDIS key I gave her is in her right trouser pocket. I can tell Rose was using it to hone in on this universe. I can't risk her using it again, so I need it back."

"No!" Rose shouted, "you can't take it! You gave it to me!"

But Jack held her in place while her mother quickly found the key. Which made the Doctor wonder how much practice Jackie had searching pockets – until he remembered the day Jackie stopped chasing men, and practically threatened him with her ankle when he made one too many cracks about her feelings about her age. His respect for her had increased ten-fold that moment.

He took the key back with relief. "Jackie," he yelled over Rose's screams that it was hers now, "when we get you home, I need you and Pete to make sure that the Cannon, and any information about it, is completely destroyed. Search Rose's room and anywhere she might have frequented if you have to, just to be sure."

The long-suffering mother nodded, understanding and apologizing with her eyes.

The Doctor smiled sadly back. Apology accepted and understood. The poor woman had fallen into the trap of doting on the child one had with a deceased love. It could backfire on you much later in life, and it had for Jackie Tyler. Pete had come into Rose's life too late.

"Doctor, please!" Rose was desperate, willing to say anything and agree to anything. "If a family is what you want, I can give you far more children than that ginger can! We'll have more time together!"

"Once again, shut up!" The Doctor knew he'd barely beaten his children to the shout, and he could feel his wife's shock.

_What's it going to take to get through to her_, she exclaimed in his mind, _us shagging behind a closed door near her?_

He coughed, sensing the amused smirks from the twins. He was so out of practice restraining his thoughts from other Gallifreyans. But if he got this one lucky break, he'd never be alone ever again. _I doubt she'd have a clue even if we shagged right in front of her._

Donna cringed. _Even if you could sonic her vocal chords silent, which would be an improvement right now, I wouldn't let her have even a glimpse of your bum! That'd just encourage her!_

He shook his head, shuddering at the idea. _Good point._

The TARDIS hit a time eddy, despite the best efforts of six pilots, and landed with a hard bump. It made everyone lose their footing. Unfortunately, it also meant Jack had to let go of Rose.

The girl, feeling her chance, flew to the Doctor's side, sure her touch would snap him out of this madness. "Doctor-"

But the Doctor grabbed her wrists, keeping her at arm's length. "My grip is stronger than Jack's. Struggle too much and you'll break bones fighting me. Fair warning." He thought he'd earned an medal for keeping an even keel to his tone, especially given that he had to restrain her when he **really** didn't want to touch her.

Jack thought about drawing Rose back, but it dawned on him that only the Doctor had a chance in hell of getting through the delusions and the fixation. Not that it was looking good on that front. Still, he kept Jackie at his side by grabbing her hand gently, shaking his head when she looked puzzled at him.

Rose tried to step closer, but the grip was harder than steel. "Why are you fighting me? We're meant to be!"

"You are meant to return to Pete's World, to be exiled for your misdeeds and crimes against space and time." His voice was deadly in its calm, belying his and his ship's simmering mood. "You've ripped into two TARDISs, and killed one! There is **nothing** that can excuse that!"

She shook her head. "I had to save you! Besides, that world didn't happen now! What does it matter what happened to that TARDIS or that Donna Noble?"

The twins sucked in a breath, nervously wondering what happened. Donna somehow knew that the truth wasn't something she'd want to remember. The rest were so far from appalled that it would take light a million years to reach there.

The Doctor's insides froze, and the TARDIS's humming went oddly silent. "What did you do to them?"

She didn't think, or even pause because of the cutting tone in the question. She just answered it. "I had to rip her insides apart to build the machine, and then I sent Donna back in time to stop herself."

"Stop herself how? Talking to her earlier self?" He desperately wanted to believe that, but the reactions toward Donna that he'd witnessed didn't give him any hope that Rose could still redeem herself a bit.

The Old Girl had no such thoughts. Her growling resumed, sounding more dangerous than before.

She laughed. "Oh, I knew better than to let that happen. I remember those Reapers from when I touched my baby self. So I dropped her too far away to make it in time, so she walked in front of a vehicle, causing an accident that forced the right Donna to turn left."

Gasps exploded throughout the room. Only the Doctor and the TARDIS didn't. They were too shocked with horror.

The twins and Jack started feeling energy crackle in the room. Jack wasn't sure what it was, but the twins knew immediately. _Uh, oh_, they thought, their anger at Rose taking a backseat.

Donna felt it more through hearing her husband's thoughts, and saw the danger. "Doctor," she said as she approached, trying to warn him.

He ignored her, cutting off another snap from Rose as he gasped, "You killed Donna?" The tension he held back was enough to be cut with a laser scalpel, and he felt the Storm within picking up speed.

She scoffed. "That world wasn't real in the end. What does it matter?"

"Did you offer her any comfort in the end, as she lay dying?" The words escaped without his permission. His instincts, however, were turning toward the point of no return, fueled by the TARDIS' own building fury. Only one kind of answer could stop the Storm in its tracks, if Rose was wise enough and caring enough in that parallel world to do that one thing.

She blinked, baffled over his cold expression. "I told her what to tell you when she saw you again, and walked away. Didn't know if I'd be caught in something bad if I didn't. Again, what does it matter?"

As much as the callousness alarmed Donna, and left her beyond relieved she couldn't remember that death (she knew a few people who'd died and come back, and the memory of dying was frightening), she had bigger concerns. The energy in the room was generating static electricity, making her insides tremble, and the humming of the TARDIS became decidedly malevolent. She stepped almost next to her husband, hoping to put to stop to things. "Doctor-"

She cut off on a cry as the energy of the Oncoming Storm unleashed. The Doctor's face contorted with a rage he hadn't expressed since he was thrown out of the Time Lock. The languid fluidity was replaced by the measured, precise movements of the soldier he'd once been. The gentle man who abhorred violence had been swallowed by who Eight had to become, and who Nine was born as.

Rose barely had the time to register alarm in herself when she found her body sharply dragged to the side, drawing a scream of shock. But then her back slammed against a column. With photon-fast reflexes, he let go of her wrists to stab a fist into her stomach – making her exhale sharply – and clamp the other around her neck.

"Doctor, stop!" Donna screamed over the terrified exclamations, grabbing his wrists. "Remember Peri!"

The combination of her terrified voice with those words halted him, but he didn't let go. Rose was having trouble struggling – the force of hitting the column had knocked the wind out of her, the fist to the stomach made breathing even more difficult, and her airway was cut off. She was feebly twitching and starting to pass out.

Not that he noticed. "She thought **nothing** of killing my girls! **My future**!" The roar made the already terrified companions – even the stricken Jackie – shudder and back away further.

The twins reached them, and tried to pull his hands away. The memory of the soldier he had been was frightening enough, but seeing it was making their insides feel aghast. As one, they cried, "She's also responsible for our existing!"

He shook his head ever so slightly. "Not enough," he snapped. "She's probably destroyed entire universes in her obsession! She's committed genocide and murder and rape! She's tried to destroy my family! She would kill all three of you if she could! Why shouldn't I take justice into my own hands? I'm the one who didn't punish her, who didn't turn her in the first time!"

Donna had one answer: "Jenny!"

The shock of that word was enough to make him let go. He staggered back a ways before bumping into another column.

Rose collapsed to the floor, gasping for breath and struggling for each bit of oxygen. Her mother rushed to check on her, as any caring person would, and Jack and Mickey followed. Both men still remembered what it was like to care for Rose, and such an aftermath did need follow-up. Martha approached more slowly, falling back on her medical training to push through her horror. Sarah Jane stepped more toward the Doctor, trying to see his face.

Donna and the twins followed him. She cupped his face in her hands, trying to draw his shocked gaze on her. _Sh-sh-sh_, she told him. _I'm here. The TARDIS is here. The twins are here. The multiverses are safe._

His respiratory bypass was active – he couldn't draw breath. _I nearly became a killer. Just like her._

_If you were,_ she gently reminded him, _then nothing I could've said would've stopped you. You were pushed to your limits and beyond many times today, and she was the cause of most of them. I will help you forgive yourself._

His body started shaking. _I don't know where all that anger came from. It was beyond what I felt even after the Time Lock._

Donna tugged his head down so their foreheads could touch, strengthening their bond. _When your feelings are trampled over, punched down, it's only natural to feel anger. Even rage. I have. Didn't know it until one boyfriend was critical of me and I hit him. You've had your feelings repressed so often over the years, and Rose was talented at shoving another's feelings aside. It was all going to come out, and your restraints were weakened today._

Their children touched his shoulders. Neither dared to speak. Their mother's words were what he needed more than anything, and her observations about trampled over feelings hit them both. Maybe it was the source of the anger they each felt – a combination of the emotional injustices each parent had faced.

They definitely needed help to let it all go. Locking things away might not work so well if the emotional memories seeped through.

His airway opened again, and he gulped air in, shaking hard. _Oh, my..._ He went pale with shame.

_It's okay, my love. You'll be able to let it all out soon enough. We'll spend a little time in the Vortex once everyone's gone home._

_Donna,_ he told her in a panic,_ I need you to send...her...away. I can't trust myself._

_Can't blame you,_ she whispered. _Any instructions?_

_Do whatever you feel is necessary. Say whatever you think right. Hard to be wrong here._ Then he pulled something out of his pocket, grateful for the TARDIS' ability to make things accessible instantly through them.

Donna looked at it, and cringed. It was something they'd both wanted to forget about ever since that awful day in the Library. But she would likely need it, and the key that the TARDIS had fashioned for it. Sighing, she stuffed them into a pocket, suspecting that no one was watching. "Keep your dad just out of the room," she whispered. "I'll call when they're gone." Because her Spaceman would want to pilot the TARDIS out of the parallel universe as quickly as possible, and he'd need something constructive to do soon.

The twins nodded, and gently escorted the Doctor to the hallway right outside of the Control Room. Put some distance between him and the person who'd caused him so much pain – and yet be close enough to not waste time getting home.

During the whole exchange, Rose tried to recover her voice as she was checked over. She'd been rolled onto her side from the slumped position she couldn't move from. She'd looked toward where the Doctor was, but her mother was in the way. It wasn't until she heard footsteps out of the room that she managed to croak, "Doctor?" She couldn't believe that he'd done that deliberately. Something had to be influencing him.

Even though his face had – for one terrifying moment – looked like the mental image she gained from reading a few novels: the face of Death, announcing it had come for you.

Donna had had enough. She didn't trust Rose as far as she could throw her – and then about five hundred metres. And seeing the rage her husband had developed from what the little bint had done to him, after everything his own people did? Enough was **enough**! So she marched over and pushed her way into the huddle, yanking Rose's arms behind her and slapping the restraints the Doctor had given her onto Rose's bruised wrists, drawing a whimper.

Jackie's eyes widened. "Hand cuffs?"

For the first time in a long while, Jack had absolutely no urge to make a very naughty joke. Naughty behavior was clearly the furthest thing from the Doctor's wife's mind.

Donna kept her tone tightly controlled. "We've landed at Bad Wolf Bay. Sorry, Jackie," she added when the over-burdened mother groaned, "but we can't get you any closer without risking the TARDIS's life, and the Doctor and I won't risk stranding ourselves in a universe where my children won't have my family around."

She nodded, sighing. "I'll call Pete. He's probably on the nursery run for our son and daughter."

Oh, good, Donna thought with a smile for her. She had a family she could be proud of. Maybe they would one day make Rose snap to and take a hard look at herself. Maybe.

She looked back at Rose. "You will go outside with your mother, saying pleasant goodbyes to Jack, Sarah Jane, and Martha. I know better than to expect such toward me."

"Hey, Mrs. Boss?" Mickey interrupted.

Donna blinked. She wasn't the only one.

He shrugged with a smile. "Seems fitting. Anyway, is it all right if I return with you?"

She thought she should've been surprised, but given what she was seeing in Rose, she wasn't. "Yeah, you can. You haven't done anything that's worthy of being exiled."

Mickey grinned, but it faded when Rose protested, recovering her loudness. "Exile? Why, you ginger cow?"

Donna groaned. "Oh, let's see. Like my children, you also committed genocide, but – unlike them – you felt no shame or guilt over the deaths. You basically forced the Doctor to give up a life to save you from your own foolishness. You made Jack immortal, which has been a flipping burden on him since he's had to die over and over – yet never able to stay dead – and watch all the people he's ever cared about pass on!"

Rose looked back at the 51st century flirt, and the grim look in his eyes told a story. Of feeling haunted, troubled, and sometimes without hope. That hit her in her heart. She had caused that.

"And where's the sadness over the Ninth Doctor's death?" There was a fire in her belly, and she was going to have her say – regardless of whether the target listened. "No, you were utterly fixed on the Doctor's current self, thinking him your perfect man even though you'd seen he's an alien! You caused the death of a person you claimed to love! Your actions might've led to all those deaths at Canary Wharf! And then there's this latest Dalek mess, which was made worse by your Cannon! Not to mention nearly killing him again, and the two times you ripped a TARDIS apart! The Old Girl has told me that any one of those could be considered an execution-worthy crime!" Going to have to have a talk with Sunshine about all those second chances he gave her, she thought privately.

Everyone paled. Rose was the only one trying to process what was being said. "But I didn't mean-"

"Exactly. You didn't mean to, you didn't think to, you didn't think of the implications!" Donna pursed her lips, eying the other companions in a silent warning to be quiet. "Now, Rose Tyler, I've lost my patience with you. No more second chances. Even my compassion has its limits. You will go outside with your mother willingly. I'm leaving a key with your mother and the instructions to not release you until the Cannon and all information on it are destroyed."

Rose cried incoherently, shaking her head in dismay. How could this woman call herself compassionate?

"You were nearly killed by the Oncoming Storm. What did you expect when you just brazenly told him that you thought nothing of killing his beloved ship and the woman who's now his wife?"

"Wife?" Rose's eyes tried to beat dinner plates.

Jack groaned. Clearly one more thing hadn't gotten through to Rose. "He married her the moment he leaned in to whisper in her ear. Time Lord marriage bonds are made through confessing their secret names to their spouse. One cannot force that."

No, Donna thought, but one can be bullied into doing it. That sums up my husband's previous two marriages.

Rose had a talent at figuring out flirts. One had that when they knew how to flirt themselves. So she saw that he was telling her the truth. And it crushed her.

"That's right, Rose," Donna said quietly. "You tried to plough your way back to him, and in so doing forced into being a family with the woman he'd lost his hearts to."

Rose started crying.

"If you think this is unfair," Donna said, "be grateful I have enough compassion to not turn you into the Shadow Proclamation and their rhino thugs."

It might actually be crueler to make her live, but where there was life, there was hope. That was what Donna believed, and she wouldn't alter it to deal with the girl who was practically her worst enemy thus far.

Jack and Martha paled. Mickey and Sarah Jane's eyes widened. Jackie blinked, instantly terrified at the thought. She didn't want to know any more, and prayed her daughter didn't push him too far.

Rose couldn't help herself. "Rhino goons?"

Martha gulped. "They decide guilt in a moment, and their guns can vaporize a person."

Jackie nearly fainted. Rose wasn't far behind.

"So..." Donna drawled, dangerously, "what's it going to be?"

There was a long moment of silence.

Jackie looked up, eyes so wet she couldn't see. "Tell the Doctor...I'm sorry I didn't raise her better."

Donna nodded sadly, feeling the mother's agony over her child's outcome. She knew that Rose didn't exist merely because of the child benefit support. (It wasn't the best reason to have a child, but it could make the difference between having food on the table or not. She knew a few people who'd done it, but couldn't fathom bringing a child into such circumstances.) Poor Jackie Tyler – she'd tried to raise her only link to her husband, and got this utterly selfish brat in return.

Rose Tyler now felt that the day she'd previously called the worst day of her life was actually pretty good. At least she hadn't had her dreams completely crushed by a different destroyer of worlds: the presence of Donna Noble.

* * *

Jack watched from the TARDIS doors as Jackie dragged her numb daughter away. She had the details for what she and Pete had to do once she was back in London, and he was sending a zeppelin to collect them.

Best they started as soon as possible, he knew. The girl he had once loved had wept goodbyes to Mickey, Sarah Jane, and himself – but had nothing to say to Martha. Which ticked him off. Martha Jones was a wonderful nightingale, and the most loyal friend. Not to mention a great human doctor. Rose really didn't care about anyone other than herself, at her core.

Which was so sad. She had the intelligence to do things in life. Yet she took all of the lessons the Doctor tried to teach her, and came away with all the wrong messages. Just because she wanted to escape her boring life instead of transform it through hard work. She certainly could do it – getting that cannon built proved it. She just needed to direct it elsewhere.

Sighing, he closed the doors and returned to the station he'd manned earlier. Donna had indicated he should. "Time to go home?" he asked.

"Passed time." The answer came from the Doctor, who bounded into the room and placed himself at the lead station. "Everyone ready?"

More than one companion raised an eyebrow, but Donna and the twins – who followed behind their father at a more sedate pace – shook their heads.

Jack in particular frowned as they all followed the Doctor's instructions. Donna manned the station that Rose had earlier, but she was clearly getting more things to do.

Much sooner than anyone expected, they had landed in London in their universe. The Doctor put on the brake. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. The explosion had caught up to him, and the numb feelings that had overtaken him after Donna had stopped him from killing were gone. He was emotionally spent, overwhelmed. And deeply ashamed that his failure had been in front of several companions.

Sarah Jane could read the look on his face. It was a more extreme version of one she'd seen on Luke's face when he did something wrong, knew it, and expected a massive punishment. "Don't beat yourself up, Doctor. No one here blames you for what happened."

He shook his head, unable to meet anyone's eyes. "I took her on as a companion. I let her think she was special to me. I let her get away with genocide instead of making her face a punishment right away. I had so many chances to dump her and make her face the music. I didn't, because I didn't want to be alone. What kind of a monster am I?"

"A monster," Martha interrupted his verbal diarrhea, "wouldn't feel guilt. He wouldn't be concerned about the right or wrong in killing. He wouldn't fight against injustices and for people who can't do anything for him. He doesn't worry about teaching anyone to be better, or what his friends think of him. Trust us, Doctor. You're not a monster."

"I agree," Mickey interjected. "You're just like anyone who's tried to escape their past. Unless you face it head-on sometimes, it keeps catching up with you. You're just a bloke who was pushed beyond your limits today."

"And when any person," Jack continued, stepping right up to face the Doctor, "is pushed that far, they break or snap. You snapped, but not one of us can blame you. You're naturally protective of the ship that's been your most faithful companion and the woman you've taken as your wife. I defy anyone here to swear that they would've acted differently."

The words weren't exactly helpful to the Doctor's mental state. Yet he did hear that none of them were angry.

Jack clasped the Doctor's shoulders, startling the overwhelmed being. "I think your wife will handle this better than any of the rest of us can, but we don't hold what happened against you. And there's something I think I'd better add in light of today." He swallowed. "I forgive you."

That made everyone blink.

Jack had to take a breath to fuel the words that had to come out, for both their sakes. "For introducing me to Rose. For not stopping her from turning me into what I am now. For leaving me behind. For calling me wrong. For everything. Because you didn't do anything wrong. She did."

The Doctor sucked in a breath. He hadn't realized how much easier it had been for him to place the faults on the Boe-Kind flirt than to face his own guilt and Rose's selfish destructive behavior.

Mickey bowed his head. He'd had no idea what had happened to Jack until today, and this confirmed every worst impression he'd been left with about Rose. He also noticed Martha crying softly, and placed a supportive hand on her shoulder.

She gripped it in gratitude. She'd watched a lot of awful things in her time with the Doctor, heard hints of the horrible things he and Jack endured during The Year That Never Was, and wondered how anyone could lack even a basic level of caring. Because that was what it looked like, judging from what she saw of Rose.

Sarah Jane closed her eyes. The Doctor needed this to be able to heal, to be the father and husband he clearly wanted to be.

Jack hugged the Doctor before he could react. "Don't worry. I don't kiss anyone who's taken."

That drew a hiccuping laugh out of the Doctor. It was a bit on the hysterical side, but it pulled him from a darker place. He returned the hug, sagging a little as a huge weight he hadn't even known he was carrying evaporated off his shoulders.

When Jack let him go, the Doctor found Martha tugging him into another hug. Silent forgiveness was being given from her, too. He wasn't even aware his eyes had become watery. He still didn't know when Sarah Jane took her turn at a consoling embrace. Hers was that of an old friend who knew better than anyone – even perhaps Donna – what a burden the Doctor carried. She'd witnessed some of what his own people had made him feel, so she wasn't surprised that he could react so intensely.

When she let go, Mickey just grinned. "You really want a hug from me, Boss?"

The Doctor laughed. A genuinely amused laugh. Rassilon, he needed that! He shook his head with a smile.

Mickey's smile grew. "You have my forgiveness, too. I figure...you've endured enough."

The unsaid aspects if Rose Tyler being the Doctor's punishment were still heard loud and clear by everyone. Still, even as his smile faded, the Doctor was able to shake Mickey's hand. Yes, that chapter was completely behind them both now.

Jack looked at Donna. "Is it too late to claim that hug?"

Donna fixed a glare on him. "Why should I when you wouldn't hug me earlier?" Not that she was feeling vindictive, but she had to know. "Got a problem with gingers?"

The Boe-Kind grimaced in embarrassment. Especially because all eyes were on him. "No, and I definitely don't have a problem with curves." His admiring grin spoke volumes.

She just stared at him, silently commanding him to get on with it.

He cleared his throat. "No, what stopped me was that I don't flirt with people who are taken, and I didn't want the Doctor mad at me. Who knows what he might do."

Donna frowned. "But I wasn't taken then."

"Emotionally, you were."

"But not actually."

"Well, the TARDIS told me that you belonged to the Doctor. I had no reason to not believe her."

The Doctor's eyes widened to dinner plates.

Martha looked pointedly at him. "You said you weren't anything other than just mates."

The TARDIS' humming started to take on a snickering quality.

Now better able to hear the Old Girl, Donna's mouth opened. "Is that why we were always landing in places that thought we were married? You, TARDIS, were trying to push us together?"

The Doctor flinched as his ship had something to say privately to him. He cleared his throat. "She was trying to push me into making a move, but I was trying to deny what I felt. Especially when you said you weren't having any of that mating nonsense."

The twins smirked. "Come on, Dad," the girl said, "you know you practically fell for Mum within moments of meeting her! You instinctively knew she'd possess your hearts!"

Her brother cheerfully added, "Have to wonder what she would've done if you'd tried to kiss her."

"Probably slap me for my cheekiness." The Doctor wasn't an idiot – she wasn't ready for that then.

Donna blushed, her turn to clear a throat. "Here, Jack." She got the impression from the TARDIS that the clone talk from Rose had hit a sore spot with him, but she wasn't going to ask why. That was for Jack to admit to, if he ever felt comfortable enough with her. Perhaps never. It didn't matter as long as she could help in some way as a friend.

Jack gratefully accepted the warm hug. His instincts were right – Donna was the best hugger he'd ever met. She gave herself over to the hugs.

So he held on a bit longer than the Doctor was strictly comfortable with. Not because he wanted to make a move on her, but because the comfort was addictive.

"How the hell," Jack suddenly asked, pulling away with a sigh, "did you, Doc, hold out against her charms and temptations? Why hadn't you gone on your knees and begged her to be your wife the day you met her?" That he hadn't made Jack now convinced that the Time Lord was certifiably insane.

The Doctor flushed a bright shade, forcing Martha and Mickey to cover their grins. Sarah Jane's smile was indulgent, like a knowing aunt's. The twins just snickered.

Donna was blushing, too, but she hadn't lost her wit. "Just because I fell for him the first day don't mean I would've said yes!"


	6. Mirror Image

**Author's Note: **The May story challenge is going well. I've written seven short stories in six days. Some won't see the light of day for a while, especially as I'm focusing on producing new material. Then I'll have a bunch of things to edit and post. :)

And now back to the aftermath of the intense last chapter...

* * *

**Chapter Six: Mirror Image**

Moments later, the four companions had walked outside, and left. Not before breathing in the familiar polluted air of London. The new Time Family stepped out to bid them off, although the parents didn't notice the wincing reactions of the twins to the pavement.

Sarah Jane had rushed ahead, needing to get home to Luke, but not before giving the family hugs goodbye and insisting that they come to meet Luke – and Donna promised her they would. The others left after the Doctor used his Sonic on the Vortex Manipulator that Jack was using. The Boe-Kind had groaned over the loss of yet another one, but still saluted the Doctor. So did Martha. Mickey left with a knuckle bump for the Doctor and the twins, and a warm hug for "Mrs. Boss."

The Doctor liked that nickname for Donna. He said it suited her. She rolled her eyes, but didn't stop smiling.

Once the companions left, the Doctor quickly and silently coaxed everyone inside. He made the TARDIS dematerialize and then tugged Donna into his arms, needing the comfort of one of her hugs as the weight of the day piled onto his shoulders. She sighed, feeling the shock and horror floating in from his mind. "The worst didn't happen," she reminded him, thinking that talking aloud might ground her husband in reality. "We made it."

"Too close," he whispered. It was the curse of how a Time Lord saw time and space. Sometimes it could be ignored or pushed aside – and he did it a lot with his companions and assistants over the years, with varying results for him and for them. But some days, the consequences were unavoidable and he was hit with the worst results. Today, it was the worst thing he'd seen since the disaster of the Last Great Time War.

In fact, the Reality Bomb could, in theory, have destroyed the Time Lock and everything within it. The paradoxes involved gave even him a headache.

The twins sighed. They shared a glance. _Which one of us should tell him?_ Duplicate Donna asked.

Duplicate Doctor frowned. _Guess I'll have a go first._ He turned to face their parents. "Hey, Dad?"

The Doctor opened his eyes, looking up to meet his children's gazes. He felt a bit of guilt as he realized that he hadn't hugged them until they dragged him away from the earlier mess. At least they hadn't held it against him. Proof that they held a lot of their mother in their psyches. A very good thing, he knew.

Duplicate Doctor decided to take looking up as permission to continue. "It's time to go to Chiswick."

His eyes popped wide.

Donna groaned, and pulled out of the hug to fold her arms. "Oi, you know that I love my family. Did you really think that you could keep me around without dealing with them?"

The Doctor rubbed his neck. "Well..." He cleared his through, trying to find a response that wouldn't upset Donna.

Duplicate Donna snorted. "Dad, you like Mum's granddad, but you've got to deal with her mother, too. If you wouldn't part us from Mum, you're not going to part her from the blood family she had before we were born."

Oh, blimey, the Doctor thought with a groan. I'm in trouble. But that didn't mean he wasn't going to try to delay things as long as he could. He did have a time machine, after all.

"Don't think you can use the time travel excuse," Donna immediately said, eyes narrowing since she could sense his thoughts. "I know how you operate."

The Doctor blinked, having forgotten that she could hear practically anything he was strongly thinking or feeling. "Donna, you know your mother doesn't like me-"

"You might be surprised once she knows the truth about Lance," Duplicate Doctor retorted. "Hearing you saved her daughter's life might do the trick."

"Well," the Doctor tried again, "she's also been awful to your mother."

"Doesn't mean I don't love her," Donna snapped. "Besides, she and Gramps are the only family I could depend on before the three of you. A person needs family to count on."

Which he hadn't had in a long time. It was the unspoken part of her words, trying to remind him that he had lacked that sense of a place he came from – which could possibly be within his grasp – until now.

"Come on, Dad," the Duplicates moaned as one as their father opened his mouth again to try to talk them out of going outside. "Don't we need to be introduced as your and Mum's children?"

The Doctor flinched. The joys of being bonded with Donna had blinded him to the implications that went with being her husband. Not now. "Can we wait another hour?" he tried.

Donna snorted. "We've waited long enough, Sunshine. Time to reassure my family and face the music."

The twins laughed at their father's blanching expression. They just walked outside, her first. They both flinched again over the feeling of gravel under their feet. Their new skins weren't used to adjusting to different surfaces, and their human DNA meant that they weren't as resilient as their father. The grating inside the TARDIS was getting to be a bit much, so they were looking forward to the carpet and other smooth surfaces inside their great-grandfather's house. She noted the sky. "Ugh. It's going to rain hard later."

Her brother grimaced as he looked up, too. "Massive atmospheric disturbance." As their parents exited, their father still pouting as he was led by their mother through a tight hand-hold, they looked up. "We'll get a lot of this for a while, won't we?"

Donna sighed. "Better this than Daleks." She marched up, key in hand and dragging the Doctor behind her, and unlocked her grandfather's door. "So tough it out, Husband."

The Doctor opened his mouth to protest, as he had toughed out the Academy (yes, with a retest) and survived hundreds of years of loneliness, but Wilf opened the door before Donna could. "Donna! You're safe!" She was folded into Wilf's arms, forced to release her hold on the Doctor.

Not that he would've done a runner. He couldn't leave her to explain the Duplicates on her own. Nor be without her. Which meant he could've only held out so long against the combined efforts of his family.

Sylvia rushed forward. "God, Donna, where have you been? What has that mad Doctor gotten you into this time?" And yet she pulled Donna out of Wilf's arms and into her own, despite all her questions.

Donna, even as she was grateful for the biggest display of caring she'd seen from her mother in years, sighed loudly. "Oi!" She pulled away. "I just helped save the whole of Creation, I bring some new family members home, and this is the welcome I get?"

Sylvia and Wilf then looked behind her, and noticed that she wasn't alone. Not only was the Doctor standing nearby, hands tucked in his pockets and practically vibrating with nervous energy, but there were two others fidgeting slightly. "Aye aye!" Wilf beat his daughter to speaking, although the shock was considerable. "They look like the two of you! But their clothes are huge on them! And where are their shoes?"

"I know, Gramps," Donna sighed, a bit stressed from the tension she could see coming. "May we all please come inside? It's about to start pissing down."

Not too long after, the Duplicates were sitting on the floor, cross-legged and restraining their nerves. Their memories might speak to the sort of behavior they could expect from their gran, but they did not prepare them to actually face it. They finally understood why their parents had each messed up situations they ought to have been prepared for.

They sat across from their gran and great-grandfather, who kept looking at them. Well, when they weren't staring at their father, sitting on the other large chair in the room, or at their mother, who stood at the Doctor's right side. Their long jackets were hanging on the coat hanger near the door. Outside, they could hear the rain start falling. Well, falling was the biggest understatement of the decade. It sounded more appropriate to monsoon season in the Far East. The Duplicate Donna sighed. "I hope everyone in a flood area can clear out of the way."

Her brother briefly clasped her hand. It was hard to tell which side of his mind that came from; their mother was the most compassionate person in the universe, but their father was more capable of it than he gave himself credit for.

Donna held up her hands. "Right, now let me explain without interruption. There's a lot I haven't said to you in particular, Mum, but I'm going to correct that now. Whatever passed between us before, the things that keep us from being able to speak honestly with each other, **please** let me speak."

Her mother narrowed her eyes, but sighed with a huff. "Then tell us where you've been and what happened tonight!"

The Doctor forced his mouth to remain closed. The memory of how Donna was treated at the reception was still fresh in his mind, and he flinched over the regret of not saying something at the time. Those people who called themselves Donna's friends still needed a good what-for.

Donna, feeling her husband's frustration, patted him on the arm. Sighing, she took a deep breath. "It turned out Lance was lying. He was poisoning me with something alien, something brewed down inside HC Clement's. The aliens you've seen in past three years? There's more of them out there, and they've been to Earth before. We've been lucky so many times, and do you know who's had a hand in saving us most if not all of those times? Another alien, who was exiled by his own people for being different." She touched the Doctor's shoulder. "And he's right here."

Wilf wondered how old the Doctor was. Sylvia needed every bit of restraint she'd ever learned to keep quiet.

"He's **millennia** older than he looks. He's fought against people who would change things for the worse, and kept history running as it should. Oh, I guess I forgot to mention that his people could travel in time and space. That blue box in front of the house is his ship. Yes," she added when she saw her mother's disbelieving look, "a **ship**. He's spent so much time on Earth, particularly among people from Britain, that he's made his ship look like one of those old police boxes. It's bigger than it looks on the outside. I can provide the proof later. He's shown that off a lot." She ignored the blush on the Doctor's face. "In any case, he's spent all but a few of the last nine hundred years of his life alone. His planet, his people are all gone – consumed in a war against those pepper pots that nearly destroyed the universe."

It was a hyper simplistic explanation, but Donna knew better than to mention now that her husband had a hand in his people's destruction. Certainly not after all that Davros and Dalek Caan had evidently exposed about him. Even if few of the companions understood the truth of it. She rubbed his shoulder, sending as many comforting thoughts as she could manage, all the love she held for him.

"The Daleks have targeted Earth time and time again. Of course, they're not the only ones. Another old enemy of the Doctor's wanted to use me as... a key to come back to life, which would've killed me and probably all life on Earth. But what Lance was poisoning me with somehow transported me into the Doctor's ship. He saved my life." She took a breath, reminding herself to keep that she'd saved his to herself. "The alien Lance was in league with, a giant spider with a human torso, killed him. That's what happened to Lance. **After** he'd made it clear that he was using me, and pointed out every fault he saw in me."

Wilf and Sylvia paled, choking on their breaths. Now they both understood why Donna couldn't find the nerve to talk about what really happened. It was too painful for her. Although they wondered how Donna managed to speak of it now without crying.

The flood of support from the Doctor fortified Donna, even as they both knew she was about to speak of something that they both regretted. "The Doctor asked me to go with him, traveling through time and space with him. But I was scared, and told him no." She squeezed his shoulder again, accepted the lack of blame. "Turned out to be the biggest mistake I've ever made; I wanted to change my life, be magnificent like he told me to be, but I just couldn't figure out how." She paused to clear her throat, to maintain her dignity.

"After Dad died, I decided to find the Doctor. I would've taken just one more time, just to figure out what I could do differently in my life, but I wanted more than anything to go with him as he'd offered. That's why I had half my things all packed – to be ready at a moment's notice. When you thought I was drifting, I was investigating anything that looked like trouble and might have aliens involved. Seemed the best way to find him. Wasn't until that night with all those Adipose, the little bodies of fat, that I did. I helped him save a million lives."

Three matching grins of pride flashed at her. Made her blush a bit, feeling the familial love and awe.

Sylvia blinked as something hit her. "Suzette. She nearly died from those things coming out of her. You mean you saved her?"

"Donna had something from Adipose Industries that turned out to be key to stopping the transformation," the Doctor explained. "I had one, but I needed a second, which she had from her investigating. She's always been brilliant. Arguing with me, figuring out the small details that are the clues to what's happening or what needs to be done, and being the best friend I've ever had."

Donna smiled, blushing over the praise. "Daft prawn." Her smile had to quirk into amusement when he flashed a beaming grin at her loving disrespect toward him. She wasn't surprised when he told her, _One more thing I love about you_, but it did make her blush and force her to clear her throat. "Since then, I've been traveling with him. On our journeys, we've made lives better, stopped would-be conquerors, and alien threats – including that ATMOS mess. And I've discovered that sometimes it's humans who are the source of the danger. So it's dangerous, but I've made a world of difference in many lives. And...he's made all the difference to mine."

"You were always brilliant," the Doctor retorted. "You just needed the chance to shine, and the belief in yourself."

Sylvia noticed that he slid a sideways glare her way. She flinched, but kept silent because her daughter continued her tale – and she'd given her word.

"Perhaps. And today, the Daleks stole Earth and twenty-six other worlds to power an engine to destroy all of creation." She looked at the Duplicates. "They stopped it."

Wilf finally couldn't keep silent. "But who are they?"

The Duplicates beamed, covering a sudden shaky feeling in their respective stomachs as they each waved. "Their children."

"What?" blurted Sylvia.

The Doctor sighed. It was time for him to pick up the tale. He cleared his throat and clasped his hands together, leaning forward. "I'm not like you. I look like you, I talk like you, but I'm not human. I'm from an alien race, an ancient race called the Time Lords. We can live for an exceptionally long time, and when we die we can regenerate, and become a new person. The energy used to regenerate is very powerful and very dangerous if someone not of my kind touches it. It happened today, while I was trying to save the Earth. I was shot by a Dalek and nearly died."

He shuddered, grabbing Donna's hand, needing the physical contact to ground himself in the present. He didn't notice how Sylvia's eyes widened in shock, and Wilf's in growing pleased surprise.

"Donna was trapped inside my ship in a very dangerous moment. The Daleks tried to destroy them both. She'd just watched me get shot and start regenerating, but I had a spare hand. Remember the alien rock over London when all those people were on the roofs?" Numb nods greeted those words. "I had regenerated fully not long before, and my hand was cut off in a fight for Earth's freedom. I was able to grow it back, and a friend recovered my old hand. I kept it in my ship for safekeeping, and I used it to absorb the extra energy so I didn't have to change. So there it was with Donna, and...she heard a heart beating. And touched it."

"We'll take over here, Dad," the Duplicate Donna said. She smiled at her new relatives. "What he failed to mention is that as the Hand, we were fully aware of our surroundings. We endured an annoying almost three years in various jars, being kept alive by nutrient fluids." She knew her frustration dripped from her voice.

Her brother jumped in. "We were still sensitive to the time-lines, and everything was converging on us and on Donna Noble. The heart beating was us calling out to her, although we weren't really aware of what we were doing until she and the TARDIS were in danger. We needed to become a person to help, but we didn't have enough genetic material despite all the regeneration energy flowing inside. When she touched the jar, the energy connected with her body, and we absorbed some of her DNA."

"That was enough to make one body and turn her from the Doctor's companion into our mother, but we sensed that fate would hand a cruel blow to Mum; the two-way Meta-Crisis – that's when someone touches regeneration energy and it backfires both ways – was in danger of threatening to grow in her mind and burn her. And that might've been the kindest fate." She glared at her father.

He flinched. Donna and Jack had made the implications of a mind wipe painfully clear through some off-hand comments in the moments before the other companions left. He hadn't realized how many potential triggers for remembering existed, and the staggering number made him unspeakably grateful for how things had turned out.

"So," the Duplicate Doctor continued, before his gran's curiosity overwhelmed her restraint, "we reached out to pull the energy back out of her safely. We managed, but got a bigger sample of her DNA with it. Before, it would've turned us as the Hand into a duplicate of the Doctor, but half-human. Yet there were two conflicting DNA instructions suddenly there. To resolve it-"

"We split apart, creating two hybrid bodies!"

"One Mini-Doctor and-"

"-a Mini-Donna!"

Donna slowly shook her head. _God, they're a scary mix of the two of us, Spaceman._ She got a tiny smile for her thought.

Wilf couldn't help but laugh. "Well, is that why she looks like Donna did at fourteen? Is that what you would've looked like at that age, Doctor?"

The Doctor frowned. "Well, I'm still not sure how to explain their existence. They really shouldn't exist at all, but I suppose it's a result of the time-lines being manipulated for so long to bring about the events of today." He shrugged, sighing. "And I hate not understanding something."

"They saved us all," Donna jumped in. "They disabled the engine, and stopped the Daleks. The explosion in the sky was the Dalek Crucible being destroyed, which was their doing..." She trailed off, reminded that her children had followed in their father's footsteps in committing genocide to protect countless other lives. "We wouldn't exist without them, and their help in returning Earth back home."

The Doctor had to interrupt his wife's flow. "But none of it could have happened without Donna. As much as our children could be called 'the Doctor-Donna', their mother birthed it all. In that moment that Donna took the risk of coming too close to burning, she made it possible to save every world – and songs will be written in her honor, across all of space and through to the parallel worlds that were also threatened." He couldn't help but look at Donna's face. "For one moment... one shining moment, she was the most important woman in the whole wide universe."

Sylvia wasn't blind. She could read the expression in the Doctor's face. It was one she never thought she'd see directed at her daughter: utter adoration. She could swear that he considered Donna the most priceless treasure in the universe. An alien! But she couldn't stop her mouth; something in the Doctor's words hit a nerve. "She still is! She's my daughter."

Donna thought her face would fly apart from shock.

The Duplicates' eyebrows did an impression of their father in surprise.

The Doctor fixed a steely glare on Sylvia. "Then why haven't you told her that before? She can't remember the last time you expressed anything other than disappointment in her or fear for her future!"

Sylvia flinched, head to toe.

Donna snapped to enough to tighten her hold on his hand and wrap her other one around it. _Theta, stop it!_

The Doctor had opened his mouth to continue, to give her what-for over all the offences he'd noted since meeting Donna, but his wife's quiet rebuke silenced him. He sank back into the chair, reminded that they had to try to play nice.

A deep breath was needed; Donna felt his anger on her behalf, and had to wait to rein in her conflicted feelings about her mother's actions. She turned to face her nervous grandfather and stunned mother. "One more thing: the Doctor and I are now, by his peoples' laws and customs, married." She ploughed ahead in the face of her shocked mother opening her mouth again. "Did I plan to marry an alien? No! But I did, and the miracle is that he loves me. He's never let me down, not once! Mum, I know I haven't lived my life anything like what you wanted, but can you be happy that I've found happiness and a purpose in life?"

Wilf looked at his daughter, praying that she wouldn't have a fit. Lord knew the women of her bloodline were prone to strong reactions!

Sylvia felt five pairs of eyes looking expectantly at her. It was easier to look at the two people who were her...grandchildren...than to meet the cautious look of the Doctor, the pleading gaze of her child, or the slightly rebuking expression on her father's face. The two young faces were giving her silent pleas to accept them, and their father. To support their mother's choices, for once. The puppy eyes had been bad enough when Donna was that age, but the look seemed to have extra force behind it thanks to the Doctor's influence on them.

Of course, what would they do if she refused? Would she ever see Donna again? Her heart clenched so painfully Sylvia thought she'd pass out. Which settled her decision, if not her emotions. "If I couldn't tell that you two are that in love...I'm not sure I would feel so comfortable about this, but I can't remember you ever being so confident, Donna. He has changed you, hasn't he?"

"I just unleashed something desperate to come out," the Doctor said, shrugging off the praise. Even where Donna's growth was concerned, he hated to toot his own horn.

Sylvia shook her head and stood. "Whatever the cause, I'm not pushing away any of you. You have a home here, and I hope to see her more often again."

"Aye aye," Wilf interjected, standing, "no more of this. We have new family to welcome!" He held out his arms to the Duplicates, who hopped to their feet, happily accepting a hug from their new great-grandy.

Donna worked her hand free as her mother walked toward her. Nervously, she realized. The two folded into a tight hug, the first truly loving one in years. It brought tears to their eyes.

The Doctor remained seated, watching his family being accepted into Donna's. He sagged into the seat, grateful that his wife wasn't going to be hurt by rejection. The joy his children had in hugging Wilf, and then Sylvia when she let Donna go, re-enforced that this was how things were supposed to be. Maybe life with Donna truly was a type of domestic that wasn't a bad thing. Oh, he felt it in his hearts, but it was another thing to convince his mind. Especially after so many years of rebelling against being in anything like a domestic role.

Still...his children needed a reminder that they couldn't take things into their hands like they had. It was his responsibility, and should've been his burden to make that decision. But how could he punish them in a way that they would respect?

His stomach growled loudly, interrupting his thoughts, and was followed promptly by his children's. He cleared his throat in the face of Sylvia's pointed stare. "Bit of an energy deficit from regeneration. The twins will have it worse since they've never eaten in their lives."

Sylvia's eyes widened. "Why didn't you say something earlier? Oh, we can't have them starving! Dad, Donna, help me see what we can make. God, I hope we have enough food to feed two teenagers. You went through a right phase of eating anything you could get your hands on. Grew taller and gained three bust sizes."

Donna followed her mother into the kitchen, not thrilled over the unintentional reminder of when she started her struggle with her weight. Yet it was the most promising sign of her acceptance. She'd sensed the twins confidence in their grandmother's growing love, and that was the critical thing, wasn't it? Still...it took a lot of restraint to not snap a retort. She wanted to encourage her mother's acceptance of her family, after all. Pick her battles wisely and all. Even if it reminded her of when her friends all had fried eggs and she had a pair that turned heads as a young teenager.

Her poor daughter. She had that to look forward to. At least she'd have a protective brother as well as a father to snap the boys into behaving. She suspected the ones now were worth even less of her girl's time than the ones in her youth were.

The Doctor frowned over the thoughts he was getting from Donna, but he forced his gob to stay silent. A tall order, but one he could manage. It would take getting used to actually having a family of in-laws again. Even if it only meant two people. Suddenly, he was even more sorry for Geoffrey's death. The man had seemed such a decent chap, and Donna deserved to have more family.

The Duplicates laughed at their father. "See, Dad," the boy said, walking past him, "that wasn't so bad, was it?"

His sister nodded enthusiastically, right behind him. "Oh, yes! Family and acceptance. All because you listened to Mum, hmm?"

He glared at them. They just laughed in his face and strolled into the kitchen, flopping into chairs by a table that only sat four.

He was father to two **very** cheeky buggers. They needed a few lessons in how to behave. Which would probably have to mostly come from Donna – she would give him what-for if he dared presume he could teach them manners. Well, he had plenty to teach them, and parenting was a shared job. Still, there were definite areas that he would need to let Donna and her family take the lead. Just as there were other things that required the opposite.

But, he sighed to himself, one thing had to come first. He followed them. As he pondered one important topic, an idea for their punishment was also forming in his head. He just needed to check with Donna to know what memories she had given them...to be sure it was suitable.


	7. Opening Night

**Author's Note**: Spit-take warning. Do not have any food or bevs near your electronic device while reading this. Not joking.

One of my NaNo friends commented once that the theater was made for nakedness. This chapter is dedicated to her, even though she's not a Doctor/Donna shipper. (If she ever reads this, she knows who she is. :D) She unknowingly inspired me to refer to a certain picture that's out there on the Internet. If you're too bashful to do a creative Google search, see if you have connections to the British contingent of a particular (O)Estrogen Brigade. It's thanks to one _very_ helpful friend that I know about this. ;D

* * *

**Chapter Six: Opening Night**

The twins watched as their mother and gran had a very quiet talk in the middle of putting together some soup and sandwiches. It danced around their real issues, but it was a start. Their great-grandy brought them whatever they needed, not complaining when ordered to also bring out some of the macrobiotic items. The sight of those made them flinch a moment. It was a reminder of how little time he might have left. Stomach cancer wasn't an easy thing to live with, especially if it seemed to be coming back. It could leave someone dead within months, if not weeks. Maybe their father could do something, take him somewhere to get that treated.

Shaking their heads, they looked around. With everything calm, they had the leisure to figure things out. They noticed their father leaning against the doorway, watching their mother with a soft smile growing.

She beamed. _Dad's a sap for Mum now._

_Yep_, her brother agreed. _Guess he likes everything about her appearance. _His eyes narrowed as he smirked._ Right down to her teeth._

She blinked. _What about them?_

His smirk grew. _Oo nothing, just that you've got mum's teeth._

She glared and leaned forward. _Don't knock it, bro! You've got dad's freckles. Every last one!_

He narrowed his eyes. _Yeah, well you got all of Mum's._

_Oi, are we comparing traits? Well, look at all the gravity-defying fuzz on you that only Dad would call hair!_

It reminded him of the one sticking point that would bother him for a long time. _Yeah and yours is all Mum! Now I'm looking at someone who's truly rude __**and**__ ginger!_

Her eyes flashed. _Oi!_

_Oi!_

_Oi!_

His hands slapped the table, unaware that they'd attracted their family's attention. _Don't you oi me!_

She stood, fixing her harshest glare on him. _You started it!_

He sprung to his feet. _And I'll finish it!_

The two grabbed each other, with muffled grunts as they were suddenly wrestling on the floor. Neither intended to hurt the other, but there was a sibling dispute to be settled!

The Doctor was shocked stiff.

"You two, what are you up to?"

They quickly stopped and got up at the sound of their grandmother's voice. Their mother's memories came in handy there – neither was keen on getting a Sylvia nagging so soon. "Nothing, Gran," they chimed.

Donna groaned. She couldn't explain the things she was sensing, and she wasn't in a mood to look carefully at it. She might check later with her husband. Right now she had give a reprimand. "I know you're going to have arguments. All siblings do. But did you have to start something over who got ginger hair and who didn't?"

They squirmed, sitting back down.

The Doctor groaned. He remembered only having two tussles in his entire childhood. Young Time Lords weren't supposed to tussle. They learned after an electrical shock, much like some humans in this age did to train their dogs. "I don't think I want to know what you think you just did."

Duplicate Donna managed a tiny grin. "I fought my brother, and won, didn't I?"

Duplicate Doctor glared at her. "No, you didn't!"

"Yes I did!"

"No, I totally won-"

"Shut up, the pair of you!"

All eyes fixed on the Doctor. The irritation in his minor yell was manifesting itself in how he rubbed his neck. Now he felt like he had a tension headache growing.

The twins grimaced. "Sorry, Dad," they chimed.

Donna exhaled sharply. "Honestly, those two are going to be the death of us! This house isn't ready for two teenagers!"

The Duplicates exchanged a quick look, and smirked. "Is that," he asked, "the house or its occupants?"

He had the unpleasant surprise of feeling his head lightly cuffed. His eyes popped wide as he realized the source. "Dad!"

The Doctor silenced the coming whine with a glare. "Don't start. You two are adolescents, which means there's a lot you can't yet do, being only fourteen Earth years old."

"But, Dad!" He knew he was whining as well as his father could, but he had to make his case. "If you count our birth actually being from the day we were cut from your loins, or your arm in our case, then we're technically seventeen, which means by law we can learn-"

"Your future," Donna snapped, "hangs on you not finishing that sentence, Spaceboy!" She switched her glare onto her daughter. "And don't you go get all smug, Spacegirl! If you're got both of our minds in yours, then you're just as capable of putting your foot in your mouth as he is!"

The smirk faded immediately. She glanced at her brother, who was equally chagrined.

Wilf shook his head as he brought over a full plate for each twin. "There, nice big sandwich for each of ya, and some fruit. Ya must like bananas – your mum put one on each plate."

Donna groaned as her family's eyes lit up. "Their dad loves bananas. They're so like him I can't imagine they don't, too."

The twins' instantly mouths watered like a dog's as Wilf put the plates down. Hunger would've made them eat no matter what was put in front of them, but this smelled good. Their human side talking, mostly. "Thanks, Mum! Thanks, Gran! Thanks, Great-Grandy!" And they dug in.

With the first bite, their taste-buds were alive with sensations. Everything was brand-new to them, despite their inherited memories. It was the oddest thing – they had the ingrained table manners of their mother, with the eagerness of their father. Tastes, smells, sounds, textures flooded their awareness. It was almost overwhelming, but hunger drove them forward. Still, the newness coaxed them into savouring each bite, and quickly peeling and trying out their bananas. They couldn't help but make a slew of delighted noises.

It was a rather comical sight. Even Sylvia cracked a smile.

Donna brought over a plate for the Doctor and sighed. "Well, now for all the mundane things about life on Earth. Got to stop at Primark for clothes for the both of you, unless Sarah Jane knows how to get some things with fewer questions. Gonna have to play the 'my possessions were destroyed' card with anyone who asks why you're in clothes and shoes too large for you two."

The Doctor gladly accepted the plate, delighted to see that he got the biggest banana, but froze as her words sank in. _You're not going to demand I go with, are you?_

She flashed a mock-sweet smile. _What, you think you don't owe me for scaring me with that exile bullocks?_

He flinched. Okay, he would be paying for that for a while. So he sighed, already resigned to being bag carrier.

_Aw_, she soothed, _it'll just be for some basics. We can't buy a lot – don't have the money. Most has to go __toward the mortgage and such._

He met her eyes. _There's still a mortgage on this house?_

"Ere," Wilf said, interrupting the silent exchange, "what do we call you two? You need names. How do Time Lords get their names?"

Donna cleared her throat, taking charge. "Well, there's the public name and then the private name, known only the spouse."

"Actually," the Doctor commented, "only the males had a secret name. Part of the old magic that made the marriage bond work."

Duplicate Donna finished swallowing her latest bite as her father talked. "No, Dad, we each seem to have one."

That got their father's complete attention. "How?"

Duplicate Doctor shrugged, pausing his eating. "Who knows? We both came predominantly from you, so that would explain her having one. Maybe the regeneration energy interacted with the TARDIS and allowed her to tell us."

As the twins dug back in to the second half of their respective sandwiches, their father contemplated the thought a moment. He gave up rather early for him, shrugging. "Good an answer as any. But," he added, putting his plate down as he sat between them to ensure the peace was maintained, "I do have your public names."

The twins nearly choked on their bites. They held all the memories of their father's efforts at naming things. Some were so ridiculous that they felt a bit nervous over what he might have in mind.

"Aye aye," Donna moaned. "Here we go." She had visions of something truly outrageous.

"No, no, no, Donna, these names suit them!"

The puppy-eyes, combined with a mental plea to trust him, made Donna melt in spite of herself. "What'd ya think of, Spaceman?"

The Doctor clapped a hand on his son's shoulder. "Here we have Benjamin Primus Noble."

The boy's eyes widened. "Primus?"

"Effectively first born, since the hand was once me, and you grew from it. Which makes Benjamin perfect."

Donna blinked. "'The son of the right hand.' You're naming him the son of your right hand?"

"Isn't that the meaning of the name?"

She noted her son's pained look, which she knew was over the middle name. Still, it wasn't the worst name she'd ever heard for an English boy. "What about for her?"

The Doctor beamed at his wary daughter. "Bella Asteria Noble."

His son glared at him. "Playing favourites, Dad?"

"Oi," the Doctor retorted. "It's fitting. You know your mum's special, and you're each part her so therefore you're both special. You also know from your mum's memories that fathers and daughters have their own bond. She's my beautiful little star, so I think that should be her name."

Donna suppressed a grin. Flattering, but he had overlooked something. As usual. "Sunshine, her initials would be BAN. Doubt a teenager wants that."

He blinked. His daughter raised an eyebrow – rather like he did – and he immediately answered, "Well, then we flip the order: Asteria Bella."

His daughter closed her eyes. She could see some teasing if she ever admitted to why she had her name. Just the way people this physical age were. Still, it was clear their dad loved them. Sighing, she shook her head. "I'll take ABN as my initials, but I'll go by Bella, thank you kindly." And she bit into her banana.

The Doctor grinned, thrilled that she'd agreed. And dug into his own sandwich.

His son groaned silently, seeing that he'd lost the battle on his middle name. Although how many kids got any say in their name? "Fine, but I'm going by Ben."

"Oi," his mother warned, "watch the snippy tone." Although she was painfully aware that she probably sounded a lot like her mother then, she did need to train the kids to behave.

Sylvia finished preparing the rest of dinner. "Where are we going to put them? It'd be best if they each had their own room, but we only have one spare bedroom and that's full." She didn't want to add that it was full with Geoffrey's things, as well as her mother's. She couldn't bear the thought of parting with them, and she would bet her father felt the same.

The twins blinked, and shared a silent exchange. "Gran, that's not necessary," Bella insisted. "We can stand sharing a room for now. We know the law will force us to change that eventually, but we can live with sharing until we figure something out."

Ben nodded as a tired Wilf sat in the other chair as the table. "After all, we each know what the other has. What's the problem?"

Donna was in the middle of drawing two chairs from the larger formal table to the crowded kitchen one, and froze in place. "Are you serious? You sure you can avoid killing each other?"

Wilf was thoughtful. "Now, that fight was a tussle. Happens once in a while. And they're adjusting to being people. They might be the only brother and sister who can share a room at their age, though."

"Really," Bella added, "it's hardly the worst thing in the world! I mean, think about the theatre!"

Ben nodded, grimacing. "Yeah! After all, you might be seeing a total stranger starkers!"

The Doctor burst out laughing. The delivery was so matter-of-fact that he couldn't have done better. He heard Wilf snickering, too, and shared an amused look.

As for Sylvia and Donna? Not so amused. "That's not funny!" snapped Sylvia.

"Oh, it is!" the Doctor choked on his laughter, tears forming.

Donna had enough so she handed her dinner back to her mother, raising a significant fingre. She walked over to her still laughing husband and leaned in. "So...tell, me Sunshine: how would you like it if pictures of you started circulating, wearing a stupid little hat...and not one other stitch on?"

He promptly choked so hard on air that his respiratory bypass kicked in, flushing a shade that tried to match his wife's hair. It cracked the twins up.

Sylvia tried to not imagine it as her daughter flashed a grim smile at having made her point.

* * *

The Mott-Noble household was silent. At least it wasn't the deathly kind of earlier that evening, thought the two teenagers lying resting in the living room. Full from a big, home-cooked meal, they needed rest.

So a sleeping bag on the chair facing the stairs for Ben and blankets on the couch for Bella had to do. Until the family either managed an expansion – which was highly unlikely unless their dad dipped into the things he acquired over the millennia – or cleared that room. Whichever came first.

Mind, given the questions he was asking over dinner – once he'd recovered from the horror of their mother's imagined photographic evidence and the worse horror of imagining Rose Tyler getting hold of anything like that – about the family finances, he was thinking about doing just that. Not to mention the thoughts they caught wind of.

The questions, along with a few about teenagers in the Mott-Noble bloodlines, continued until their mother proclaimed it was time to set up bedding for the twins. They'd grumbled, but their bodies were winding down for the night, the regeneration energy on a quiet moment.

Although the sight of their gran's face as she realized that there was a man who actually had the right to share her daughter's bed? Priceless.

Bella sighed. She found that she wasn't really tired, but needed rest nonetheless. _How long do you think the effects of regeneration energy will last in us?_

Ben rolled on his side. He figured he should at least look at his sister while talking with her. Politeness and all, even in the dark. Not like they couldn't see. _Well, Dad didn't feel rejuvenated until...24 hours after he recovered from the sickness?_

_But we're part human._ She turned her head, not feeling like rolling over. _That should cut it down, __shouldn't it?_

_In theory. But we're not exactly normal._

A smirk. _What's normal where Dad's concerned? Or Mum?_

A grin. _Point taken._

An intense flash within their minds made them both flinch. _Oh, my God!_ Bella rubbed her eyes, even though it wouldn't get rid of the mental sight. _Dad, put some shields up!_

Ben cringed and shuddered. _Yeah, we're trying to lock some memories away! Can't do it when you're openly and __**loudly**__ broadcasting what you're doing with Mum!_

The link went silent. For a moment.

_Oh_, Ben said to his sister, _that flash of irritation wasn't from Dad._

_Yeah, it's been a while for Mum for anything. Must be impatient for her wedding night._ Bella wished she'd already locked that knowledge away, but things weren't working on anything like a schedule. Sadly.

Then they each felt things they had trouble making out. Their parents had put shields up, but some things were leaking through. Then they faintly heard something from upstairs. _Was that a door,_ Ben asked, _at this hour?_

Bella listened keenly. Something about being a Duplicate of their mother made her more aware of the nuances of the house. _Must be, because I swear I hear footsteps. Two pairs._

Sure enough, they heard soft footfalls on the stairs. They waited until Bella could see their parents – in their jim-jams heading for the door. _Is that,_ Ben demanded, _Seven's umbrella?_

Bella lifted her body to push herself into sight. _You two are going out in this downpour?_

Their mother glared at them. _I'd rather no one could overhear, thank you very much!_

_Think we __**want**__ to know what you're up to?_ The twins shot their mother's glare back at her.

_That's enough!_ The Doctor meddled with the umbrella, ready to open it to keep his wife dry. Only it seemed to be stuck. Sighing, he fixed his children with a pointed look. _You two are staying right here. If we're not back inside by breakfast, you can knock on the TARDIS. Come morning, we'll talk about what school you'll be attending next month._ He smirked and quickly ushered Donna outside, giving up on staying dry.

The twins stared after them, trying to follow their father's odd logic. Then it hit them, shooting them bolt upright. _School?_ Bella cried.

_Life as teenagers?_ Ben paled.

_Dealing with all the idiot students and teachers?_

_No travel in the TARDIS?_

They both moved to jump up after their parents, but the TARDIS boomed in their minds: _Stay!_

Cringing, they looked in her direction. _Why?_

They felt the Old Girl give an awkward laugh. _You'll get more than you bargained for._

Looking at each other, it dawned on them that there was a tradition of...christening...a room. They each turned as red as Bella's hair and sank back under the covers, pulling their own shields up as tightly as possible.

Meanwhile, the TARDIS sighed. She'd give her Thief what-for over leaving wet jim-jams strewn all over her Control Room later. The poor Time Lord was, after all, giving into the powerful urges woken by the earlier kiss after bonding to Donna. Repressing those so-called lesser impulses had been one of the worst consequences of the Curse forcing the Looms into being. The Doctor might have avoided some ugly situations if he'd known a little more about emotions.

Still, she mentally sighed, it led him to Donna Noble. She would birth a new race of Time Lords, ensuring that the Doctor was never alone again.

So she'd keep the thoughts of her Thief and his Wife private. They certainly needed the help; their control was already non-existent, and they were far too distracted by mutual exploration.

And she kept them from sensing what she could. Like the vague impression that there was another Time Lord out there. That could be explored later.

After the Doctor had cleaned the Jump Seat. Bipedal beings had no idea the messes they left behind.


	8. The Menace Tells All

**Author's Note**: Sorry about the delay. This needed work, and I was working on my May Story a Day challenge. I managed all but three of the prompts in one month. :D It'll be a while before I publish any more of them. Also, some won't be published here, under the new ratings rules. You'll have to come over to LiveJournal to see them. I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint.

* * *

**Chapter Eight: The Menace Tells All**

Minnie Manton was coming home from the Tesco trip she made each week when she heard laughter. She glanced up and beamed. Her favourite pair of people were coming home from school, alternating between walking and running. It was good to see them smiling – they hadn't when they started school. They were each also a bit shorter then. "Hello!" she called out, waving.

Ben and Bella looked up from their impromptu race to wave back at the woman known as The Menace. Of course, Ben was too young to feel the reasons she had the nickname. "Need any help, Mrs. Manton?" they called as one.

"Only if you're not going to be late getting home."

"Not today." The twins jogged up to help their neighbor put her things away. After all, their mother and grandmother always said they needed to be neighborly. It built good will. Their father hadn't argued, reminding them of things he'd seen over the years.

Although his children were pretty sure the worst danger in this part of London was whenever West Ham and Mill Wall went up against each other. Their great-grandfather suspected that there were a few Mill Wall fans in the neighborhood, and they never reacted well to their team losing. Even winning wasn't pleasant for those around them. But that still couldn't compare with a war started over a simple, unintentional insult on some far-off world.

Mind, incidents over a loss had happened before and would happen again. As soon as their mother was more maneuverable, their father promised they'd take a long trip as a family in the TARDIS. In other words, once Mum had recovered from the pregnancy and the triplets' brains could handle being inside the Old Girl's time field.

Inside, they were finishing putting the perishables away when Minnie, having gabbed about the people she saw since they'd last spoken a few weeks earlier, turned her full attention on them. "And how's your mum? She doing well? Poor dear. Three at once! How far along again?"

The twins shared an amused exchange. It hadn't taken their parents long to make another child (neither would be surprised if it happened the wedding night, given the timing), but it seemed their mum's age had provoked her body into being ready to make multiples. Naturally, however, their mother had blamed their father. (Anger was just part of her way of dealing with things like massive surprises, even with her immense compassion and how badly she'd wanted to carry a child.) Bella had laughed when their father tried to point out the realities of fertility and conception, and Ben tried to pull him aside to point out how "you're not helping yourself, Dad."

It got uglier before the Doctor decided to mostly just take his wife's frustrations after that. He wised to the reality that some things weren't worth arguing over. Finally.

They mentally tossed a coin, and Bella lost. "About a month left, assuming they stay in that long. The morning sickness has long gone. She's happy, even with the waddling."

Minnie smiled knowingly. "Ah, she looks peaceful. Like an Earth Mother."

Ben chuckled. "We'll tell her that. She'll laugh and say thank you."

Donna Noble had become calmer the further along she was in her pregnancy. Oh, she was still more than capable of slapping someone into next year and could shout loud enough to be heard in Southend, but she didn't need to. She had the knowledge that she was being heard without needing to shout at the world. It was the greatest feeling, she said.

The twins figured it didn't hurt that she had a husband who didn't mind going out to obtain the weirder foods she craved. Sweetcure sun-baked hockle eggs with soured luchin bacon chips? A hop into the TARDIS to the right planet, order to go, and be back within seconds of departure. The TARDIS wasn't going on any other trips – she wouldn't do that to Donna, and she was having a little mercy on her Thief even if he was glad to do whatever it took to ensure the babies were healthy.

Which, once some of her senses became hyper-attuned, also meant keeping other things out of the house. That sometimes pained the twins. They discovered early on that they **loved** chocolate, but it was apparently a hazard to pregnant women, causing all sorts of nasty side-effects. Especially given the Gallifreyan genetics. So not one drop of chocolate could exist in the house – Donna could detect any present, thanks to a hyperactive sense of smell from the pregnancy. So the twins had to sneak all their chocolate at school or while otherwise out of the house. And rinse their mouths out so she didn't detect it. Although she usually suspected when they had – coming home with minty fresh breath was a dead giveaway.

Minnie looked at them oddly, surprised that they didn't pick up on her hint. "She ought to be proud, carrying the start of a new species."

Their heads whipped around to look at her. She couldn't...could she?

She smiled gently at them. "I was a nurse for UNIT during the Omega Crisis, helped a lot of those poor lads die peacefully. You have no idea how much a little affectionate caring and flirting can soothe a dying soul. I heard of the Doctor from that, and I've seen how UNIT visits your home regularly. A good story about your mum and dad meeting sixteen years ago and him raising you, but I saw Donna during some of that time she ought to have been pregnant. She clearly wasn't."

They squirmed. They'd fallen into the trap their father regularly did: not thinking the implications of a cover story through.

Minnie laughed lightly and reached for their nearest hands. "There, there," she soothed, patting them, "you two are two of the dearest people I know. So you two are at least part alien. I won't tell. Why get anyone in trouble just because of where they came from? Besides, your great-grandfather clearly likes your father and adores the two of you. I wouldn't hurt any of you."

The twins exchanged a relieved look. Who knew that they'd actually be grateful for Minnie's affection for Great-Grandy?

The old lady chuckled over their obvious nervousness. "I doubt anyone else has figured it out. They'd have to have paid attention, and most people made the mistake of ignoring your mum – unless to make sport of her. Well, not until your father put a stop to that."

Yeah, the twins remembered, that was quite the moment. The Doctor was called to the school, told that his kids were involved in a fight. He arrived with Sylvia and Martha, who quickly helped him prove that Bella was just shoving away a boy who was trying to force himself on her and Ben acted in her defense. (The only reason Bella didn't take care of it herself was that it would've proved she wasn't fully human. Ben had mercifully gained some visible muscle mass, or the punch might've been hard to explain away.) And Bella wasn't the first girl he'd gone after.

Not a good day. Even after the kid was heavily disciplined and even brought up on criminal charges once another assault came to light.

But the story got out. More than a few parents thanked the Doctor – Dr. John Noble to all but those in the know – for helping stop a lad who could've turned into a nightmare. He wasn't surprised to learn the boy's father hadn't been a great role model, but it also came out that the boy's opinions about Bella came from his father's opinions about Donna.

Bella had inherited the curse of being a ginge with big knockers (after the growth spurt hit) with a whistle that could stop a football hooligan at twelve paces and who could explain the off-side rule. Donna herself had lots of takers, but no stayers.

The Doctor had been angry. So much that his manner turned into what Donna called The Oncoming Husband. Scared the hell out of the man with a look and some carefully chosen pointed remarks. Word quickly got out all over Chiswick and Ealing:

Don't give Donna Noble's husband reason to be angry with you. Anyone who ever groped her or tried to do more should steer clear of him.

"You two," Minnie continued, drawing them out of their thoughts, "have done nothing to draw attention to yourselves, so rest easy." She ruffled their hair affectionately. "Now I'm sure your mum is expecting you any moment. Go, and give my best to your great-grandfather, eh?"

* * *

Minutes later, Ben and Bella were walking slowly home, their mood rather contemplative. _Best tell Mum and Dad,_ Bella finally said. _Think anyone else has figured it out?_

Ben sighed. _Minnie's more observant than most in this area, and I know we've made the teachers think we just have photographic memories. But, yes. Still do that._

_Especially with Mum's...situation._

They never used the word condition. They both knew it was stupid to call pregnancy a condition, but their father knew nothing about what a human woman could expect carrying one half-Gallifreyan child. (Honestly, no one did. Not with any records of Leela's child lost.) Add two more into the mix? The result was an over-protective Doctor dealing with the brunt of morning sickness that put Donna on bed-rest for two months until Martha and the TARDIS figured out some medicines that would lessen what most people called symptoms. Human biology adjusting to not attack the foreign aspects of their unborn children, their dad called them.

Two months where the Doctor learned a few important implications that attached to being married to such a brash creature. (Especially when her natural instinct was to snap when she was in extreme discomfort.) The biggest was that certain truths shouldn't be said. **Ever.** When she – suffering from a nausea bout that left her stomach hurting for a day – snapped at him for having super sperm, he protested that reproduction didn't work that way, that he had nothing to do with that aside from providing the genetic material and letting them do their thing.

Big mistake. The Doctor had never actually had a red mark from a slap before. Donna had yelled at him to get out of the room before she said something she'd immediately regret. In the kitchen, where the Doctor put a cold glass against his cheek, Bella glared at him while Ben spent several minutes telepathically mocking him. It was as interesting to Ben how pink his father turned from the neck up as it was so mortifying for the Doctor to hear his own voice using Donna's tone to explain why what he did was utterly daft.

It amused the twins, however, to see just how much their father started simply taking the verbal abuse rather than argue and therefore aggravate their mother. The overcompensating made Donna groan that they'd never have a good debate ever again.

It took the couple a month to figure out a new balance. The twins had never been more grateful.

At least, until the fifth month of pregnancy when they **really** had to resume practicing their mental shielding since their father wouldn't let their pregnant mother into the TARDIS except for a giant threat. A few times here and there they had to practice the shielding, as their mother found enough strength to...reward him...for some of the things he did for her. And the Doctor **loved** those rewards.

Shaking off the memories, they exchanged speculation on whether anyone else might have pieced things together until their home came into view. Great-Grandy's and Mum's. Sylvia had nearly fainted when she discovered that not only had her new son-in-law cleared the mortgage, but he also paid off their other debts. And bought the suddenly empty house next door.

The Doctor had gone from freaking out over domesticity to bypassing a mortgage and jumping into effectively owning a place outright – although placed in Donna's name. The twins hadn't quite been able to suppress their amusement, especially over imagining a certain person's conniption fit had she been able to know about the Doctor's choices.

The sight had become a comfort – it was their home on Earth. The only one they had since their father hadn't allowed them to go anywhere since the day they were born that wasn't local and within human walking distance – unless they had an adult drive them. Except for when the TARDIS sensed something happening in the 1800s in London. Their mother persuaded him to take them with him, and he found having them as companions comforting as he stopped a threat created by one of his past actions. Or possibly because of Rose's use of the Cannon. It wasn't clear which. The twins had to each resist the urge to crack a joke about how many more consequences would his not being honest with Rose from the start have in store for him. That would just be unkind.

Neither were surprised by the two unmarked cars parked in front. One was a welcome sight. The other, an expected one. The solider guarding the second vehicle gave away its origins. _Well,_ Bella noted, _UNIT is visiting Dad again to consult._

_At least Martha's here, checking on Mum again._ Ben perked up. _Means Mickey's probably here, too._

_Didn't Mum say something about the Brig and his wife joining us tonight?_

_Oh, yes, she did. Mum and Mrs. Lethbridge-Stewart got on so well. I think Dad was embarrassed when he realized just how many stories Mum could hear._

Smirking, they rushed to the front door of their Mum's home, nodding to the solider who snapped a quick salute as they passed. (Their feelings were more mixed on the matter than their father's were.) As they unlocked the door, their noses picked up on something wonderful. Gran was making dinner, and it smelled like one of her cooking for twenty quantities. It drew them quickly inside.

"Is that Trouble 1 and Trouble 2 I hear?" Mickey's teasing voice chimed from the kitchen. They heard Great-Grandy chuckle.

They moved to look into that room. One of the first things the Doctor had arranged was for the two kitchens to be merged into one bigger one, with the dining rooms combined as well. Meant they had room for more guests, and were much more prepared for an expanding family of new Time Tots. "No more so than usual," they retorted. And nodded to the elder also sitting at the table with their father and great-grandfather. "Sir Alistair."

The Brig chuckled. "Young Mr. and Miss Noble. Do join us. You can listen to the mess that your father and I are trying to solve today."

The twins chuckled over the flicker of frustration on the Doctor's face. "Be back shortly. Bread smells great, Gran!"

"Oh, put your things away! I could use some help here. Your mum's in the living room." Which meant this house's counterpart to where the twins had slept their first night on Earth. "Martha's with her. No telling how long this one will be."

They smiled over her half-hearted rant. That explained the closed door on their right. "Right back!"

"Better be," the Doctor grumbled, rubbing his temples.

They barely kept their amusement hidden from him. To prevent laughter, they swiftly walked (as their gran and mum forbade running inside except for dire emergencies) to their study room – which hadn't existed when they were born.

The first of the family projects as soon as the Doctor had cleared the mortgage (only Donna and the twins knew where the money actually came from, and the twins had tried to not laugh when Donna forced him to explain how – if he had all that money – he hadn't been carrying any when they met) had been to combine the houses and then expand just a bit. Despite managing to clear the three upstairs bedrooms, the Doctor and Donna had the sense that extra space would be needed if they were all going to have one roof over their heads on Earth.

The end result, made possible only because of some careful verbal maneuvering around the Council on their part, was two rooms expanded upstairs and a new one created – thereby connecting the upstairs halves. Downstairs was an extra, long and thin family room. All storage problems had been solved by pulling some items out of the TARDIS. Donna and the twins created a system for retrieving anything quickly, improving on the Doctor's haphazard system.

Sylvia was still unnerved by the ability to find things inside a storage box so quickly, but she stopped complaining when she was able to show off a cleaner house to the Wednesday Girls. And she took considerable pleasure in reminding her friends that her son-in-law wasn't that kind of doctor. She knew he was getting irritated with Suzette's questions about bunions, after all.

Although not nearly as much as when some of Donna's friends flirted with him. He'd beaten Donna to snapping at them the first time they did it. None dared a repeat. Especially if they'd been at the failed wedding to Lance.

The twins put their packs down in one of the old reception rooms downstairs. The other two were still used for storage, but this one had been converted into a place for studying and computer research. Mentally shaking off the day, they took a moment to walk into the new room to help shift gears.

_They're coming soon_, Bella thought.

Ben nodded. _Mum will be glad._

They would all be. Donna complained regularly about feeling like a beached whale at best, a planet at worst. She looked passed ready to pop. They hadn't lied to Minnie Manton when they said if they stayed in that long. No one expected them to. Just reach the last of the Gallifreyan developmental milestones. That was what Martha, Donna, and the Doctor wanted to see before Donna went into labour.

The spare room was called the Play Room, which was the other place the downstairs were connected. Here was space enough for tussles without breaking anything, tickle fights, and larger games. Ceiling-length windows brought in plenty of natural light, and special blinds were there of they needed privacy or to block out the sunlight. Today it provided a view of the TARDIS' resting spot in the backyard, where she sat looking out for trouble.

The most prominent item currently in the room was a comfortable black sofa at one end of the room – brought in from the TARDIS – made of material designed to withstand colouring implements, spills, and sharp fingernails. Donna had trouble getting up off it by herself, worse than most other seats, and hadn't sat on it since it was brought in.

Toy chests were lined along one wall between the doors, each ready for the name of one of the triplets. A teddy sat on top of each one: one cherry coloured, one mint, and one lilac. The Doctor found them on the TARDIS, and the twins recognized them as once belonging to Susan – back from when One decided that she needed more Earth items to speak about. She'd been amused by them, even fond of the sight of them. Lots of hugs were needed then.

The twins stroked the fur, wondering for a moment what life would have been like had they been even younger when created. They shuddered when they had a flash of being babies. Oh, how awful that would've been! Having all those memories and not being able to talk properly aloud!

As they each contemplated how to tell their father that someone had figured enough out, they felt the TARDIS reach out to them. They blinked, sensing that she'd found something that needed checking. _Why not ask Dad?_

They tended to talk as one to the Old Girl. It was a habit that somehow started while they were still the Hand.

_Not a good idea to make him leave your mother right now. And he wouldn't believe what I've seen._

_But we're not allowed inside you! Not without him!_

_You need to break the rules this time. I will explain that I urged it. My Thief will understand in the end. You two will, too, when you see what I found._

Dubious, they silently made their way through the back door to the garden their grandmother and mother tended to, where the TARDIS remained truly out of sight of everyone with the perception filter. They hurried inside to the screen at the Controls, and simultaneously paled at the readings.

Yes, their father wouldn't believe it. _Best to risk his ire and take whatever punishment he and Mum dole out_, they sighed as they moved to fly the Old Girl.


	9. Girl Meets World

**Author's Note**: Due to the changes in FFN ratings, I had to raise the rating of this story because the topics within are now considered adult. Despite that the questions would be asked by any nine year old. Also, the remaining chapters may be heavily edited for FFN because of this. I'll direct y'all to my LiveJournal account for the whole story, because there's a good shot that an entire chapter will need to be omitted from FFN.

* * *

**Chapter Nine: Girl Meets World**

The living room door opened and Donna made her way into the kitchen with Martha at her side. She held on to Martha and rubbed her lower back at the same time. Practice – when she was allowed on her feet, a fact that she loudly protested even though she had to admit she couldn't walk around as much as she wished – kept her moving fairly steadily, even with the waddle she had since being nineteen weeks pregnant and that had worsened ever since she looked like she ought to pop at any moment with **one** baby, never mind three. "Did I hear the twins?"

The Doctor popped up, grateful for the moment's distraction from talking with the acting head of UNIT. "Yep. You're all still fine?" He couldn't keep the worry out of his voice if his remaining lives depended on it, even as she smiled at him. Instead he touched her face, eyebrows tightening slightly until she gently shook her head, and took over helping her move.

Martha resisted the urge to roll her eyes as the Doctor guided Donna to her comfortable kitchen chair – moved by Mickey into easier reach for her. She decided that her stint working in the maternity ward – which had been the hardest part of her training – was a piece of cake compared with checking on a half-Time Lord pregnancy. She never thought she'd see the Doctor acting the part of the nervous father-to-be, and taking it to new levels. Then again, Donna had once told her that there was no way she'd see the Doctor that way. She remembered that lie being exposed that fateful day of the Planets, but she could appreciate why it was said. She still sometimes wished she'd had that kind of wisdom – would've saved her a tonne of embarrassment.

Of course, it figured that the Doctor's children would be the ones who gave her an absolute devil of a time whenever she used the sonic aids to check size and health. Martha was sure they did it on purpose. Finally, their parents somehow convinced them to cooperate, for their mother's sake. Although she was sure she saw some sibling roughhousing attempts on the screen today. Perfectly explained why Donna wasn't sure she heard her two eldest come in. "She's fine. The babies are fine. They finally hit all the developmental markers the Gallifreyan materials said they should. Those vivid dreams Donna mentioned could be just part of pregnancy."

The Doctor didn't believe that for one moment. The dreams Donna was experiencing – colours she couldn't understand, sensations she'd never even heard of, and sounds she couldn't identify – told him that their unborn children had been conceived inside the TARDIS, on their wedding night. That put him on edge; there was nothing to indicate how exposure to a time field at such a delicate stage might have affected the development of a fetus. Especially a half-human one, and they had **three** to think about.

Donna groaned, feeling every worry radiating from her bonkers – and alien – husband as his hands ran over her belly, accidentally triggering gymnastics as the triplets tried to physically say hello to their dad, vying for space and elbowing their way to the front for daddy-me time. "We went over the birth plan – again! We're ready, Doctor," she reminded him for what truly felt like the millionth time. "Just a matter of waiting on these rascals to decide they're done." She knew she might regret calling them that once she was in labour, but she no longer cared. It accurately described their behaviour.

The Brig chuckled loudly as Donna sat down. He'd greeted her with a kiss of the hand when he arrived, just before Martha swept her into the living room for the exam (and some frank talking). "Is this the same Doctor who hated staying in one place?"

The Doctor flinched. He knew the Brig was just teasing, but the unintentional reminder of his time exiled as his third self still hurt. "That wasn't my choice the last time. I have that freedom now, and I have the best reasons to be on Earth so much." His hands changed their rubbing pattern on Donna's belly, and he leaned to touch his forehead against her bump – strengthening the connection to the children and coaxing them into stopping their wild movements.

Martha chuckled, covering up the fact that she found the sight utterly adorable and had to keep from embarrassing him by saying so. His wife and children were giving him enough payback for the times he made her, Martha, feel second-best to Rose. "I can't believe," she commented, amused, to Donna, "this is the same man who said he 'doesn't do domestics.'"

He didn't need to look at her to know she was using finger quotations. He sighed heavily and looked up. "Fine, you want an answer for that? Domesticity was, for a long time, synonymous with boredom and being trapped in one place, with someone I didn't love or want to be with, expected to carry out a role I never wanted and knew I wasn't suited for. I was held back for most of my life. Being exiled, as painful as it was, was the best thing that happened to the first me. I was able to start exploring the universe and time instead of observing them from a giant distance. Domesticity meant that I had to live completely according to another's rules."

The others flinched. No wonder he'd been exiled, they all realized – he must have been chafing something dreadful under those rules on Gallifrey.

Donna was the only one who already knew. He'd been slowly telling her a lot before they married, and the flow had increased after that.

"After the Time War, domesticity meant living like a human with no regard to my **not** being human. I couldn't handle my differences not being respected. Had enough of that from my own people. I couldn't even think about anything close to domestics..." He looked at Donna, his eyes shining with gratitude and love. "...until Donna came along and I suddenly realized I was doing all sorts of things I'd hated before and yet I didn't mind. It was the company, and that I was doing things out of love that made the difference."

"Aye aye." Wilf absently commented as he moved to help Sylvia with some chopping. "There are plenty of proverbs about that."

Taking a deep breath, the Doctor continued, turning his head back to his audience. "I'm no longer alone. I have a family who needs me as much as I need them, and I wanted to try to create more family – filling the empty spaces inside me. Some spaces I'd sensed were empty before the Time War. And there are so many unknowns since my people lost all records of what Gallifreyan pregnancy meant, so I won't leave Donna alone for long. I need to see that my family is safe, to see our children outlive me."

Martha's mouth went a bit slack. "Then each one of them is more precious than the entire Sol system. Maybe even the galaxy."

He restrained his reaction, focusing on his hands as they rubbed Donna's belly to continue calming the babies. They were nearly asleep. "Could I have imagined living like this back when I was in that past life and unable to even pilot the TARDIS? I doubt it, even if I'd had clues that this was in my future. But this is my life now. I'm able to go places if I need to, and the TARDIS is helping ensure we get back on time. I wouldn't have chosen the path we took, but I'd never change the outcome."

Donna stroked his hair tenderly with both hands, smiling happily. She knew the feeling well that he'd just described. She had to suppress a laugh when she felt him struggling to not purr under her touch. His reputation didn't need any further beating. So she moved her hands to rub his shoulders.

The others all were silent for a long moment. It was a drastic change for him, but every one of them could understand and support it. The Brig smiled. "I've certainly never seen you looking content."

The Doctor quirked a tiny grin, shrugging.

Mickey, sensing a tension break was needed, smirked. "Who knew you'd become such a lucky sod?"

The Doctor beamed, his typical manner breaking through his frustration and concerns, but then he froze. He heard the TARDIS engines firing. His head lifted instantly. "What do they-?"

The Old Girl cut him off mid-sentence. _It was not their idea. I need __**them**__ to help me, Thief. We'll be back very shortly._ And then she – and the twins – were gone. Leaving him and Donna wide-eyed.

With an audience that had no idea what just happened.

* * *

If not for Donna's hand on his arm and her thoughts in his mind, the Doctor would've exploded in anger once Donna said what they sensed. Knowing they could do nothing, she forced him to sit back down and helped contribute to the matters involved in rebuilding Earth's defenses. She knew things were bad if a Brigadier had been brought out of retirement – **again** – to run one of the two most important defenses against alien threats that Britain had ever had. That said a lot about the scope of the massacre.

Of course, UNIT probably also wanted the Doctor comfortable with them, so they deliberately chose the person he was most comfortable with. Donna wondered who was being groomed for Sir Alistair's place, especially as the go-between with the Doctor – the man was not young, and she sensed from the bond that the Doctor knew his old friend had maybe a few more years of life left. One more burden of being a Time Lord.

But far worse would be Sarah Jane's death. Donna knew her friend was having cancer concerns, and the way the Doctor flinched subtly when it was mentioned told her that he knew it was coming. Donna knew how much Sarah (as he'd sometimes called her) meant to him still, how much they'd lost because of his own people, and knew he would be gutted when she passed.

She wondered how far he would go to delay the event. It wasn't doing his mental state any favors now.

The Doctor's frustration over the twins disobeying him and running off with the TARDIS – oh, she knew it was the other way around, but the distinction didn't change that he felt trapped and angry – wasn't the biggest test of her patience, but it was up there. Mind, she understood the frustration. The twins had followed their instructions and orders with only some complaining (and that was cleaned up when Sylvia noted when they were whining like teenagers – they didn't want to sound anything like a certain companion) since they arrived.

No, Donna knew the greatest test of her patience was and would be the Doctor's overprotective streak toward her and the children. Aside from a few times where the TARDIS signaled that she'd detected something in the past, or the bus incident just days ago over Easter, the Doctor hadn't left Earth since the Planets mess. He'd barely been away from her, insisting that she never be alone. All because he sensed the morning after their wedding night that they had conceived a child. He had to show her through the bond, and she'd bawled in his arms – unable to believe that her greatest dream was coming true.

Mind, it coming on the immediate heels of them becoming parents and marrying worried her a little. It was moving fast, but they'd adapted. What else could they do?

Trouble was, she understood the cause of his worries that provoked the overprotective behaviours. He'd been the last of his kind for far longer than he let anyone else know. She knew about the Master because her husband had a nightmare three weeks after the Planets mess about the Year That Never Was. Evidently his former friend turned enemy had gone after everyone still alive who had ever helped the Doctor, and had sent his goons after Donna, killing her family in the process.

Seemed the Doctor was more obvious about his feelings for her than she could've imagined. No wonder he was so nervous now about her safety and the children.

Yet Donna, in that Year, thwarted the Master's plan to torture and kill her in front of the Doctor, as he had the other companions he'd got his mitts on. By luck she overheard that the goons were to take her alive (possibly because the TARDIS managed to give her a warning), and read between the lines correctly. So instead of letting herself be captured, she managed to set off an explosion that killed those who killed her family. Alas, it also killed her, reducing her to ashes. As painful as the knowledge was, the Doctor had felt a bit of pride in Donna for not letting anyone hurt her and going down fighting.

She held him as he'd cried from recounting the dream memory. Then coaxed him into making love. He slipped into a mad desperation to remind himself that she was safe, that they were building a future together.

Bringing herself back to the present, Donna sighed. Her challenge had been and would always be to remind her husband to not keep the children – and her – locked up for their own safety, to not make them feel as trapped as he had felt at more than one point in his life, but to be a daddy and husband – to have fun and be involved in more fun ways in their lives. He was actually doing a good job of that with the twins, helping them figure out how to turn their schoolwork into something challenging to them.

He was definitely encouraging a protective streak in Ben toward Bella, though. Mind, she hadn't said anything about it since the incident at the school. They'd started school just two weeks before, which could've been a problem, but Ben's actions might've protected their cover in the end. Their schoolmates had quickly accepted them, and the teachers loved them – even though they were baffled by them at times.

Which reminded her: what **had** happened that the TARDIS claimed only the twins could handle? It was just their luck that the Old Girl would choose that moment to discover something critical!

Okay, perhaps she didn't choose it. Maybe the Doctor was right when he muttered that he sometimes was convinced that the universe hated him. Scary thought.

Thank goodness for Martha and Mickey. The former proved better at forcing the Doctor to listen to her than she had been, and the latter was able to be the voice of reason. Of course, it didn't hurt that he could still call the Doctor on wrongly labeling him an idiot all those years ago. For him.

About two hours later, the Brig decided that they had done enough for the day, having plenty of ideas to implement for a month. The timing coincided with his Ruth's arrival. Martha and Mickey had planned to head on their own, but the tension level from earlier made their accepting Donna's dinner offer a good idea for everyone. The roast chicken and potatoes were ready to serve, the side dishes – including stuffing and fresh vegetables – already set at the table.

As Sylvia and Donna discussed where to seat everyone, made much easier with the two large tables they now owned, they all heard the grinding of the TARDIS engines. The twins had returned. Donna and Martha, both seeing the Doctor's eyes flash, grabbed his arms before he could stand.

"Let them have a moment to explain themselves before you jump to conclusions," his wife sharply cautioned, briefly wincing at a twinge in her back. "Remember the last time you made assumptions before you asked why people did what they did?"

He flinched. She tried to not remind him of the events of the Planets mess, but that one was one of his worst moments. Thinking his fourteen year-old son was actually old enough to be imposed upon by Rose Tyler? (From her perspective, it would have been the other way around, but he'd never given a thought in that direction. Especially not after she'd triggered the Oncoming Storm. Indeed, he now tried to **not** think about her.) Yeah, he **still** owed Ben for that.

The Brig gave him a sympathetic look. "Children are difficult at this age. I believe Dr. Jones was telling me that in humans, the frontal lobes are not yet fully integrated and unable to properly influence their thinking. I can't imagine how their Gallifreyan heritage works, but surely the human side has room to grow?"

The Doctor groaned, and took a deep breath. _Okay, Old Girl. Why?_

_You will see when they come in. They are fine, my Thief. A bit tired, but fine._

_I hate it when you're cryptic. You're interfering with our rules._

The TARDIS was silent, but he and Donna could hear a satisfied tone in her humming. And relief.

_The Old Girl learned from the best on both counts_, Donna told him. That drew a groan from him as the back door opened.

Sylvia, who had finished the cooking with Wilf's help, held up a hand. "I'll deal with this."

The Doctor couldn't help but smile a little. Who knew that her brand of nagging would come in handy every so often?

Sylvia called out, "And what time do you call this?"

Ah, Donna sighed to herself, the phrase and tone of doom. At least she no longer throws it at me. And my kids are smart enough to not toss my old retorts back at her.

"This wasn't part of our plans for today," Bella snapped back, her father's irritation booming in her tone.

They could hear her and Ben's footsteps, but something sounded off about it. Like they had company.

Sylvia stuck her head out in the hallway of their former neighbour's house. "No excuses, you two-" She cut herself off. "Who is she?"

That captured the room's attention, confirming the Doctor's suspicions. Although why were his senses tingling? It was almost like...no, it couldn't be.

"Someone," Ben replied secretively, pleased with the results of their impromptu journey, "we thought was dead." He and Bella came into view, looking exhausted physically and mentally, bringing with them the person Sylvia saw.

Wilf, Mickey, and the Brig were baffled when the Doctor choked on his breath, slowly rising to his feet in shock. The face was one embedded in his memory. His instincts hadn't been wrong.

Donna gasped, covering her mouth with both hands, unable to believe her eyes. She trembled, both from the weight of her own emotions and from the barrage she felt through her link.

Martha blurted, shell-shocked, "Jenny!"

Wilf and Sylvia's faces fell open.

The very alive young Time Lady looked around, waving a little at Martha, smiling at Donna, but her face went watery at looking again on the Doctor. "Hello, Dad," she whispered. Unable to wait, she rushed into her father's numb arms.

They went around her by instinct. Her scent was the same, obscured by the smells of her travels, but still so familiar. Her hearts beat under his embrace, strong and steady despite the turbulence of the moment. Her grip was as strong as it had been when he'd opened his hearts to her. His body started shaking, and he was instantly in tears.

The Brig, Ruth, and Mickey were stunned. Seeing the Doctor that emotional was unheard of to the two former, and the latter knew he was missing some critical information.

Sylvia and Wilf, however, weren't. "This is Jenny?" he cried as she asked, "You said she'd died!"

"Who," Mickey interrupted, "is she? Are the rest of us going to hear this one?"

The twins sighed. Clearly they were the only ones in the know who had enough control over their emotions to tell it. "When Martha was saying goodbye inside the TARDIS after the Sontaran invasion," Ben began, "we and the TARDIS suddenly detected what seemed to be the presence of another Time Lord. Well, the TARDIS had an emergency program for such things, despite our father's pessimism. So she took charge and flung them to another planet and time."

"Once there," Bella continued, "on an underground world, they were captured by a group of human soldiers. On orders of their warmonger leader, a sample of Dad's DNA was stolen by a machine, shuffled around, and force-matured into a grown person: Jenny."

Those not in the know stared at Jenny, who was aware of the scrutiny, but couldn't care less. Her dad was shaking from shock, so he needed to be hugged longer.

Ben shuddered over the memories. "The entire story is a long one, but suffice to say, Dad didn't react well to a creation without his consent. Mum was gobsmacked by it, too, but she quickly saw the girl as a person and even named her. And pressed Dad to accept her as his. It was only when she proved that Jenny had two hearts that he started to."

"He'd reached acceptance toward and love for her," Bella added, tearing at the memories, "and had found a way to stop the war when that warmonger aimed a gun at him. Jenny stepped in the way and got shot, and seemed to die."

Martha shook her head. "I checked her myself. How is she alive?"

"The machine that created her," Ben noted, "was geared toward making humans. So she thought she was one. Didn't realize she had two hearts until Mum and Dad told her."

"We have two hypotheses," Bella explained softly. "One was that the terraforming gases that Dad released to encourage the combatants to stop fighting – it worked, by the way – held her in a form of stasis so she could heal. The other is that she was actually falling into a healing coma, but that programming from the machine had convinced her that she was supposed to die. And Dad hadn't established the familial bond with her, and so neither of them realised that she wasn't really dying."

The Doctor's numb mind could've reached those conclusions on its own, but the twins did think a lot like him. It made sense. Although it was all he could do to not break down into tears.

"I'm told that I breathed out a faint golden cloud as I woke," Jenny said, voice breaking as she tightened her hold on her father. "I stole a shuttle and started exploring, trying to follow in Dad's footsteps."

The Doctor, shocked as he was, hugged her even more tightly. She really was so like him.

The Brig and Ruth were stunned, staring at the reunion as comprehension hit. Mickey felt a lot of empathy for the Doctor, thinking someone he loved was dead. He'd been there, but he hadn't thought he'd see it happen. The alien didn't do anything by halves.

Sylvia cleared her throat and looked at the twins. "And you have your parents' memories of her?"

They nodded.

She grimaced. "That makes things trickier. But how did you find her?"

Bella stuck her hands in her pockets, and Ben folded his arms. She started the tale. "The Old Girl sensed Jenny's life-signs, and that she was in trouble. We went to the location, and found her crashed shuttle. Along with some time travel device she'd attached to it. Clever thinking, but the shuttle wasn't designed to handle that."

"I was trying to find Earth," Jenny defended. "Trying to find my Mum so I could also find my Dad."

The Brig interrupted. "But if you just came from the Doctor...?"

"She imprinted on me," Donna murmured, just loudly enough for the whole room to hear. "I named her, made her father accept her, and basically treated her like a Time Lord." She was heartily ashamed of saying Jenny wasn't real, even if it'd been frustration and anger that caused it.

"Anyway," Ben interjected, wanting to get the story over with, "she did her best, but the timing and location were off by a lot. Turned out to be a place that you visited with Rose." He glared at his father. "Remember the planet you went to a day after the first visit to New Earth?"

The Doctor cringed. Yeah, that hadn't been one of his finer moments. Or Rose's. He knew afterward that he should've given Rose a lecture about walking off on her own and flirting with the locals. Had he been so...confused...that he'd let her pouting face make him give her another chance without a warning? Or had all that flirting with local males been an effort to get his attention in ways he wasn't able to give? "What happened?" he managed, just barely.

Jenny shuddered. "I explored a bit when I crashed. Some bad things had happened and they were rebuilding. I started helping, and I happened to mention I was looking for the Doctor. Then they arrested me, calling me Rose Tyler."

The Doctor froze, eyebrows trying to touch the ceiling. "What?"

Donna and Martha exchanged baffled looks, and Mickey shook his head. "They don't even look alike!" he cried. "They're not even the same shade of blonde!"

Jenny pulled back enough to look her father in the eye and take his hands. "I tried to say I had no clue who they meant, and assumed it would be bad to admit who you are to me. I didn't like how the primary leader looked at me."

The Doctor's hands gripped hers a littler more tightly, eyes scanning her for injuries or other injustices.

Bella sighed. It was ridiculous. She resumed the story. "So we apparently arrived shortly after she did, and followed her trail. When we were nearly captured because Ben was recognized, we used perception filters to hide who we were. Well, who Ben looks like. Seems enough time had passed that only thing about Rose remembered with any accuracy was her being blonde."

"It's a good thing we came when we did," Ben added grimly. "That ruler wanted to kill her. Well...eventually," he reluctantly added – not wanting to think the rest of it, but knowing he had to say it.

Everyone cringed. No one more so than the Doctor. He hugged Jenny again, more in relief this time.

"Nothing happened to her, Dad," Ben stressed. "We got there in plenty of time, and we found help from people who remembered you with gratitude."

"We collected her captured things, and then broke her out with our Sonics," Bella continued, thankful that their mother had insisted that just because they were effectively exiled to Earth didn't mean they shouldn't have the tools of a Time Lord. Then smirked. "But we also toppled the leadership, which was making the people who helped you stop the original threat struggle to live."

The Doctor hissed. Donna's eyes closed as she covered her mouth, imagining the agony.

"Which," Ben tightly added, "you might've realised was a possibility had you not been so keen to get Rose off the planet. Or at least made her apologise for inappropriate flirting and interfering with the peace process."

Both of them were grateful they'd stopped themselves from joking about what other side-effects Rose's actions could have on their futures. The truth of that feeling hit too close to home today.

"You do realise," Bella stated, "that trying to remind Rose that flirting and pouting isn't the answer to everything might've saved you a lot of trouble? And spared us from having to make a ridiculous rescue today?"

Donna's hands slapped her chair's arms. "Enough!" she snapped, recovering her voice in the face of her husband's distress. Jenny's presence was **plenty** for his mind to deal with. "It's in the past. We have to let go sometime." She looked at her eldest – in every sense of the term – and more tears formed. "The family is whole. That's what's important here."

"Ere, so this is Jenny?" asked Wilf. He couldn't help but stare at the young girl. "But she looks more like our family than you, Doctor!"

A sort of laugh escaped Donna's lips, but her concern was too great to let humour in. Her husband was still in shock.

Jenny, as much as she was enjoying being hugged, needed to move. "I've missed you, too, Dad, but I want to hug Donna and Martha! And I think I should be introduced to the others."

That dragged him out of his thoughts – which had been incredibly jumbled. He was feeling the familiar heavy weight of guilt, this time for not sticking around long enough to be sure despite his grief. Then he felt his wife reach out to him through their link. She was right. It was the past. A painful past, but the past nonetheless. He would only hurt Jenny if he let his memories consume him. He squeezed her one more time, and glanced at the twins. "You're forgiven this time, but don't go without us again."

They nodded, ruthlessly suppressing grins. It was the greatest set of extenuating circumstances, after all. Complete set, with trump card.

The Doctor finally let go. "Our eldest is home, Donna." Which made his wife beam in his mind. He cleared his throat and turned to face his oldest friend in the room. "Jenny, I want you to meet someone who has seen me through a number of my lives: Brigadier Sir Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, retired from Her Majesty's Service – but helping restore the planet's defenses at the moment. And his wife, Ruth."

Jenny wasn't sure what was expected of her, but the man's extended hand – even with his rather stunned expression – told her to offer hers. Which she did, parallel to his until he clasped and shook it to show her how. After a few seconds of watching their hands, Jenny looked up. "What am I to call you?"

The Brig chuckled. "Sir Alistair. Your siblings call me that." Charming girl, he thought. Wonder how her father will handle her naivety. He saw far more of the Doctor who had worn the celery stick than this Doctor in her, and wondered how Gallifreyan genetics really worked.

Jenny nodded and also warmly greeted his wife, who was too stunned to speak much. Still, manners allowed her to smile warmly.

The Doctor continued, "And one of my companions, Mickey Smith."

Jenny grinned. "Sounds like you could help explain Rose Tyler to me. You seem to know her."

Mickey suppressed a smirk, noticing the Doctor's unease. "Well, I did. The twins tell you anything?"

"No, they said it was Dad's responsibility."

The Doctor coughed, and glared at his wayward offspring. _Oi! Did you two have to put that all on me?_

The twins each raised an eyebrow. _It's your story to tell._

_Listen, Sunshine_, his wife interrupted, _you can't avoid it forever. Tonight you will explain that story._

He sighed, knowing Jenny's eyes were on him in confusion. "You remember Martha Jones."

Martha and Jenny hugged in an instant. "So glad we were wrong," the young doctor sighed happily.

"Good to see you again," she enthused.

The Doctor coaxed her along. "Your mum's mother, Sylvia Noble. The twins call her Gran."

Sylvia found a smile despite her shock. "You do look like you could come from the family. My granddaughter, just like Bella," she commented as she drew the girl into a hug. "Would make it easier to create a cover story for everyone not in the know, if we hadn't told everyone who's asked a story about Donna and the Doctor met."

The twins winced. Maybe they should ask Minnie for ideas about explaining Jenny away. Which reminded them: they still had to mention what she'd said. Half-sister by some previous relationship seemed the best option, but what about the details?

"Sounds like a lot to do," Jenny muttered. "You seem like a good teacher."

Donna agreed, but she held her tongue. Some things she'd figure out on her own.

Jenny turned to the last person she didn't know. "And who's this?"

Wilf held out his hands to take hers. "I'm Sylvia's dad, Wilfred Mott, your great-grandfather. Call me Great-Grandy."

Jenny instantly liked him and hugged him. "They said you watch the stars at night."

"Yes, whenever I can. If the weather permits, I'll bring you with us tonight."

Beaming as she was released, Jenny turned to face the last person in the room for her to greet. "Mum," she breathed.

Donna's tears started falling again. She held out her arms. "So good you're home, sweetheart."

She rushed to hug Donna, throwing her arms around her. And pulled away with a gasp when she felt something get in the way of a proper hug. She saw a huge bump on Donna's belly. "What's that? It moved when I touched you! What's wrong with you, Mum?"

Not so shocked now, Donna chuckled at the innocence and wiped her tears. The triplets had slept through everything until she saw Jenny. She just hadn't realised it until they kicked against Jenny's body pressing into hers. "A pregnancy, Jenny."

Jenny looked like that was Greek to her. "Again, what's that?"

The twins blinked. Did that mean-?

Martha's eyes went wide. "Um," she started, "that's how new people are grown." What and how much had been omitted from her programming?

Jenny looked at her in horrified disbelief. "No, they're not! They're created by a progenation machine with a sample from a sole parental source of DNA."

Mickey, Ruth and the Brig stared at her, not daring to interrupt. This sounded like a bizarrely fascinating moment to witness.

Sylvia and Wilf exchanged stunned looks. How little did this girl know about the everyday aspects of life? Was warfare and life on the battlefield all she knew?

The Doctor swallowed. "You mean you've never heard of reproduction? Of two parents combining their DNA to make a new person?"

Jenny thought a moment. "No, that wasn't included in my download. And what does that have to do with a huge growth on my mother's body that moved under my touch?"

_Oh, this could be shaming,_ Donna told the Doctor. _We have witnesses for a birds and the bees talk. Including Mum and Gramps._ Aloud she cleared her throat. "Sweetheart, I'm carrying babies, who will grow into new people. It takes about twenty Earth years for them to grow to proper adulthood, and their maturing depends on their environment and their own natural progression. They're growing inside me, which is the typical way someone is made." There, that wasn't too bad!

Ben and Bella were covering their mouths, trying not to laugh. They wondered just how far their older sister, who their memories made them love and even adore, would take her questions. And whether she had any sense of tact.

They weren't holding out on that last one. She was her father's daughter, after all.

Jenny frowned. She reached out to touch Donna's belly, and felt something kick her from inside. She recoiled in shock. "But...how is that possible? Unless you're built like the TARDIS, how can a person fit inside there? And how do you get DNA from the second parent inside you? You'd need some sort of receptacle. And what does the father use to insert his DNA?"

The Doctor and Donna turned red. The others' jaws popped open.

Bella and Ben – on the other hand – collapsed to the floor, convulsing in laughter. Oh, they both thought, to have had a video camera!

Jenny turned a scowl on them. "What? It's a legitimate question!"

They just kept on laughing. This made up for the troubles of the rescue and for being exiled to Earth!


	10. The Birds, the Bees, and the Bewildered

**Chapter Ten: The Birds, the Bees, and the Bewildered**

When Sylvia Noble finally recovered her ability to speak, the first thing she did was to step next to the floor-slapping twins who were acting more like nine years old rather than almost fifteen. "Oi! Get up and help me serve dinner! And wash your hands!"

The twins slowly did, struggling to restrain themselves. They also made a point of not looking at their parents, their sister, or each other – they felt like anything could set them off again. And the memory of their father rubbing a hand down his face, trying to decide how to react, was a picture – he was torn between mortification and laughing, and struggling to ruthlessly suppress the latter reaction in the face of the glares from their mother.

Seeing that Donna and the Doctor needed longer to recover, Sylvia quickly set about dishing a little of everything onto a plate. "Here, Jenny," she announced, moving faster than usual to start plating the first course. But ahead of that was offering her new grandchild little tastes of each item. "I don't know what you've had of human food, but try all of these. It's an old family recipe."

She was operating on the assumption that if you fed a kid, they would stop asking embarrassing questions for a while. It didn't work forever, but it gave the adults a chance to think about how to handle or deflect them. Mind, deflecting only worked so well with a really intelligent child – let alone a genius-level teenager. And she now had three of them to deal with, even if one was completely ignorant of real-world matters.

Still, it worked. Jenny was quickly engrossed in asking questions about the roasted chicken, the stuffing, and the vegetables that were cooked much of the afternoon. In fact, she was filled with curiosity about the room and the equipment.

Jenny soon noticed that she was exhausting her Gran's knowledge. Not that her adopted human grandmother was stupid, but her focus had been on other things. She tried to back off and change tacks whenever she noticed Gran stumbling for answers.

Mind, she wanted more to know what her siblings had found so funny about the earlier questions. Why did the others look shocked, and why had her parents gained such a flush in their complexions? It seemed life outside of war and fighting was far more complicated than strategy and tactics could ever be. Strange thought. And then, why did it take so long for her parents' faces to go back to what they'd been when they accepted that she really was there? What was the problem with asking how reproduction worked?

She pondered it all – in-between her questions – as she kept receiving samples from her gran. She had only had the ration packets from the shuttle, and those she had done her best to make last. She ate only a little at a time, until she had to rely on whatever she found on her travels – but she wasn't sure how good her scanners were and had to commit some food to testing. She wasn't used to having so much at a time, and realised she was extremely hungry.

Now her challenge might be figuring out when to stop. She hoped her body had some cues – she knew basically nothing about her dad's people and their biology. Except that they could apparently cheat death in a way. Bella and Ben had mentioned little, which she understood. They were focused on getting home so Mum and Dad could know.

Really, she was happy to be on Earth at last. She'd seen the TARDIS, even if only a little bit, and now had so many people she could ask questions of. It was a great big adventure!

If on the quiet side.

"Didn't you two feed her?" Her dad's voice broke into her thoughts, sounding a bit more composed if quiet.

Jenny looked up to find people were sitting around one of the tables. Eleven chairs, including her mum's comfortable one, had been set up around it. The chairs were a mish-mash of items, although six of them looked like part of a matching set.

Bella and Ben were helping to bring the remaining plates to the table for passing around, and shook their heads. "We wanted to get home straight away," she said.

Her brother added, "And she wanted to see you."

Jenny thought the smiles on her parents' faces then were quite nice. Although she didn't know what to make of the smirks she saw on Martha and Mickey's faces.

Soon she was seated between her great-grandfather and her father. Conversation flowed between the others as she filled her stomach with foods that she'd never heard of before but tasted amazing. The flavours from the first bites did seem to fade a little. Something about how your mouth acclimatised to whatever you're eating and then you don't enjoy the remaining bites as much, her dad explained.

Another odd thing, but not critical, to think about. Especially because there was enough variety and everything tasted wonderful enough that she just kept eating.

Although she'd had to watch how the people around her eat. Forks and knives – those were foreign objects to her before coming to Earth. Her rations could be eaten by hand, sipped through a straw, or spooned into the mouth with a biodegradable spoon. Evidently she now had to learn about what her Gran called table manners. And she overheard her mum joke to Martha about how atrocious her dad's had been before she managed to teach him.

Come to think of it, her dad was acting considerably deferential toward her mum. She'd seen a lot of places where the woman had to defer to the man, on pain of death. It'd made things tricky while she was on her own, and ensured she had to run a lot. How much did that have to do with the... pregnancy? Then again, her mum had corrected her dad several times on Messaline, and he'd listened where he'd previously been hell-bent on following whatever he thought was right.

Very interesting.

As Gran gathered plates after dessert was served, Jenny let hers be taken away. Her siblings had been recruited into helping, and had stopped laughing at odd moments. Talking about school – the odd place where they had to learn what others their apparent age were did – evidently did that for them. She would have to see this school to know why. So many questions.

In fact... she remembered that she'd been interrupted by her siblings' laughter when she had questions about this... pregnancy that caused the bump in her mum's abdomen. "Mum? Dad?"

The Doctor, who had been having a silent conversation with Donna through their bond, turned hesitantly. "Yes?"

Donna looked up a moment later from her tea, also cautious.

Jenny decided to cut to the chase. "How **does** pregnancy happen?"

Her parents paled. "Oh my god," Donna muttered. "Not the birds and the bees now..."

The Brig flashed an uneasy smile. "On that note, I believe it's time for us to leave." He and Doris stood up. She looked flushed, and rather eager to avoid witnessing the upcoming moment. "Mrs. Noble, Mr. Mott, thank you for dinner."

Sylvia smiled graciously, accepting the handshake. Wilf answered for both of them. "Always a pleasure, sir." He snapped a salute, which the Brig returned.

"Doctor, I will see you in a month." He shook his old friend's hand heartily. "Good luck with everything," he added meaningfully.

The Doctor grimaced. Yes, he also meant the babies, but this... newest challenge was now the primary focus.

"Take care, Donna." The Brig took her proffered hand, bowing a little over it, which never failed to make her smile. He noted a tiny flinch this time, but chose to ignore it. He nodded to the twins, who were helping wash plates. "Young Mr. Noble and Miss Bella. Until next time."

Bella and Ben smiled, nodding back. Yes, Jenny's being there meant that Bella would be addressed a little differently now.

The Brig extended his hand to Jenny, and she handled the handshake perfectly. "An honour to meet you, Miss Jenny. May your adjustment to Earth be smoother than your father's was."

Jenny wondered what he meant, but nodded. She saw her father tense out of the corner of her eye. Clearly that was not a subject he was ready to talk about. Okay, she would accept that for now.

Indeed, the Doctor was flinching over the memory of feeling like a duck swimming around a tiny hole in a frozen pond. He had the TARDIS, but she couldn't move and he couldn't fly her. Horrible time for him and the Old Girl.

"Mr. Smith, Dr. Jones. I will see the two of you much sooner." The couple still seated nodded, and stood – as was fitting.

Moments later, when they heard the Brig's car driving away, Jenny turned to her parents. "Why did he leave?"

"Sir Alistair is a busy man," Donna quickly said. "And not a young one, either. He needs his rest."

Jenny looked out the kitchen windows. "But it's still daylight."

"The older we humans get, Jenny," Wilf stated, sitting back down next to her, "the easier we get tired. And I'm sure he wanted time with his wife. That's what a married man does when he's in love."

Married. Another word she needed explained to her. But Jenny figured that if she asked about that, she would only be delaying the answers she really wanted.

The only thing that baffled Jenny was the occasional wincing her mum did. She also noticed that as the dinner progressed, Bella and Ben were watching their mum more and more. Their earlier laughter had now vanished completely. Jenny blinked, trying to figure out what could be happening. Since Gran and Great-Granddad – the other name to call him by – were picking up plates to clean, Jenny took advantage of a lull in the talking. "Mum? Are you alright?"

Sylvia looked back toward the table, eyeing her daughter's posture. Martha also looked extremely interested in the answer.

Donna nodded slightly. "I'm fine," she softly said. "Why?"

The Doctor caught her eye, looking very pensive. "Donna, you've been wincing about every 12 minutes now. You're sure you're not... feeling anything?"

She shook her head. "No. I'm wincing?"

He nodded.

Martha got up. "I'm grabbing the scanner. I want to check you again." She rushed into the other room to retrieve her bag.

"These could just be Brakston-Hicks again," Donna insisted, trying to keep her calm.

Bella grimaced. "Mum, remember whose kids they are. The timing they might have – or lack thereof?"

"Thank you, Bella" the Doctor muttered sarcastically, not taking his eyes off his wife. And ignoring the snickering of his son and Mickey.

"What are Brakston-Hicks?" asked Jenny.

There was a brief moment where every head in the room looked at each other. Jenny's family was trying to figure out who should handle this one. Even Bella and Ben were looking weary, even as they thought at each other, _At last, a sensible question._

Martha sighed loudly as she opened her bag. "They're like practice contractions for labour. Gets the body primed for when the babies are ready to be born."

Jenny frowned. "What are contractions?"

The twins groaned, and then face-palmed themselves. "Can we just hand her some books?!" Ben begged.

Bella nodded behind her hand. "I know we have an anatomy book, but we could always grab _Conception, Pregnancy, and Birth_! That'd fit Jenny's age group. Or perhaps the classic _Where Did I Come From?_ which I know is hiding around somewhere. Maybe that would work for starters, even though it's a kid's book. Please let me go and grab them!"

Ben snorted. "Dad was certainly entertained by that book."

The Doctor covered his face with one hand.

"Oh, flipping heck!" Donna cried out of aggravation. _Not_ from the pain she was now rather aware of. "Okay, Jenny. The short version of the birds and the bees, in human terms. Although it seems to work in a similar way for Time Lords. Women have the... receptacle organ you mentioned. We carry eggs to be fertilised. Men have one that's for transferring their seed, called sperm, into the woman. That happens through an act called sex, which can be done whether the couple wants to make a child or not. If one of the sperm meets the egg, and all goes well, about 38 weeks later, give or take, the woman gives birth to a baby. That's a very small person who's completely dependent on his or her parents for everything. I don't know about Time Lord pregnancies – there's a lot of information lost on that. Sometimes you get more than one baby, which happened here," she finished, pointing at her distended abdomen as her face continued to try to match her hair.

Jenny didn't think her eyes could have gone any wider.

The Doctor rubbed his neck awkwardly throughout the explanation, hoping against hope that Jenny would accept that, and not ask for in-depth descriptions. Besides, he was positive that the contractions were growing closer together.

Ben and Bella glanced at each other, finding a smirk. "Any questions, sis?" they asked.

The others exchanged disbelieving looks. That had to be the frankest and yet least detailed talk known to mankind on the subject. Although not the shortest.

Jenny pursed her lips. "Well... what are the organs?"

Her parents had not thought their faces could turn any redder. Mickey and Martha couldn't stop themselves from laughing.

The twins' smirks grew bigger. "Mum, Dad," Bella said, eyes twinkling like her father's, "shall we go and get those books Gran got for the future?"

Ben added, "How about the anatomy books? Maybe some pictures would answer Jenny's questions."

Donna groaned. "I need to walk a bit." The Doctor helped her slowly get to her feet, her every movement being watched carefully by the entire room. "Fine! You can do that! My backache's getting worse!"

Martha frowned as she scanned Donna. "Well, no sign of any prolapsed cords, thank god. How far apart, Donna? How strong?"

The Doctor tried to listen through the bond, but Donna was waving them both off. "I'm telling you, I'm-"

Her words cut up on a scream as liquid splashed to the floor at her feet. The Doctor paled, the twins' jaws dropped, and Jenny stared in shock.

"Oh, sodding 'eck," Donna whispered.

"Doctor, help her walk around a bit," Martha ordered, rescanning for prolapsed cords, just in case. "It'll help things along a bit. When the contractions are five minutes apart, help her upstairs to get ready for the birth. She's dilating faster than I expected."

"I'm walking! Else he'll break his back!" shouted Donna.

"You're still not that heavy, Donna!" the Doctor insisted.

Martha decided to intervene. "Ben, Bella! Get ready, show Jenny what to do."

Jenny shook her head. "Do what?"

Bella grabbed her by the hand. "Come on!" She dragged her out of the room, into their half of the home.

Jenny looked back when her mother cried out incoherently. "What's happening to Mum?"

Ben led them upstairs. "It's called labor. It's how you get those babies out of the body."

"Martha called it giving birth. Why?"

They were upstairs and rushing to a tallboy – a wardrobe with drawers – in the hall. Ben opened it in a flash and grabbed a pile of clothing, as well as a circular object with an opening on the top. "Because she's gonna push the babies out of an opening that dilates to let them out. Else we'd have to cut them out of her, and she'd raise hell about that unless it was necessary."

Jenny didn't have a chance to react. He opened another door, rushed inside with his things, and closed it.

She blinked when she heard something start running, and the sound of rushing water hitting something else. "I... I don't understand any of that or why he needed new clothing. And what is that room?"

Bella sighed and rubbed her face, acting very like her father. "Oi, who has to explain simple things about living, let alone the birds and the bees, to their big sister?!" She dragged Jenny into her room, rushing into the closet to put together another batch of clothing – they only had one set for a female ready, and Jenny was a little shorter than her as well as a little smaller. "We need to be present for the birth, and we need special clothing because the babies are going to be born smaller than ideal. It just happens with multiples."

"What's the birds and the bees?"

She flinched. "Ooh, I should've seen that one coming." Her hands flung back into her closet. "That room in the hall is a bathroom. It's where we clean ourselves after a long day or such. I'll be showing you how to use it, just in case your download didn't include it. You should know how to use a loo, though."

Jenny watched in confusion as Bella moved from the storage area full of garments to a free-standing storage unit, opening it. She pulled out trousers, which Jenny recognised, and something else that she didn't.

"Anyway, that object is a sanitiser that eliminates anything that could be harmful to this planet – but especially to Mum and the babies. It's running while we each take a quick shower, another thing you should know how to use. As for the birds and the bees... It's an old saying. I don't know where it came from or what each part refers to. It's a saying for explaining sex and reproduction to kids. And this is my bedroom."

Jenny frowned. She opened her mouth, but stopped when they heard their mother cry out again. Then words floated their way.

"Damn it, Spaceman! If you ever want me to think about doing this again, you'd better make sure I don't carry another commando unit inside me!"

Or, more accurately, blasted their way.

"Donna, if I could control that, I would for your sake!"

"Oi, don't snap at me, smarty-pants!"

"Doctor, we'll let her walk about a minute longer," they heard Martha say. "Then we'd better get her upstairs. She's already in transition and close to the second stage. I'm guessing they're impatient – which I wasn't expecting for a first-time birth, let alone for multiples."

"There were rumors that Gallifreyan birth could be quick," the Doctor said tensely, alarm blasting through.

Jenny cringed as she heard what she thought was her mother making pained cries that ended on whimpers.

"Donna!" Martha cried. "Don't push yet! We need to get you upstairs! Doctor, help her stay calm."

"Easy for you to say!" snapped Donna. "That's like asking Moby Dick to turn black!"

It sounded like the Doctor choked trying to not laugh. Bella snickered.

Jenny turned to her sister."Does anything about Earth make sense?"

Bella laughed and led her back into the hall. "Oh, just wait until you meet other humans. Trust me, this house will make perfect sense compared to them. And I say that with love, coz some of them are my good friends."

They heard the water stop running inside the bathroom. The mechanical sounds of the sanitiser kept going. Ben seemed to be rushing through his next actions.

"Bella?"

"Yes?"

"What is that thing with a clasp in the back?"

Bella blinked for a long moment. "You've never heard of a bra?!" she breathed as Ben opened the door.

He'd thrown on tracksuit bottoms, and his polo shirt was completely undone. He heard the question and laughed. "I'm betting hers is built into her top." He smirked, and waved to them. "All yours, ladies."

His twin stuck her tongue out at him. "Call yourself a gentleman, do you?"

"Hey, I had a head start on Dad!"

"Ben, why is your shirt undone?"

They laughed, leaving Jenny even more confused as Bella dragged her inside the room. "We'll explain in a moment," Ben called after them.

Inside, the bag that Ben had dragged inside was filled with everything he had been wearing, although left open. Jenny had downloads about loo facilities, and could figure out how to operate everything. Although what those rolls of paper near the toliet were for baffled her.

And it was a big surprise to see her younger sister strip down rapidly, and shuffle the curtain around to step in and start using the shower. It wasn't a true shower for them, Bella explained as best she could through the water noises, but enough to get them clean to help their Mum and Dad.

She had had barely enough time to take in everything properly and examine the sanitiser unit when Bella stepped out, grabbed a towel, and ordered her to strip and get in. Which she did. Luckily, the objects used for cleaning – along with the words to describe them and the ability to read directions – were included in her download. Soldiers did have to clean after battle, after all. Made you less likely to be found if you didn't smell. And she was nothing if not quick.

Before long, she finished the instructions and turned off the shower. She pushed aside the curtain, and found a towel handed to her. As she dried off, she noticed that Bella was folding her hair into a bun, held back by some unusual hair objects. She was ordered to brush her hair out, and then to get into clothing like Bella's.

A simple button-up green blouse – whereas Bella's was purple – and trousers like Ben's and made of a material Jenny did not recognise. Bella only buttoned her shirt a little, exposing something rather like the confining object she had grabbed earlier. Jenny was rapidly led through how to wear a bra – oh, so that was the thing inside her shirt! – and then hurried as Bella said to 'put some speed on it.'

Once she was clothed to Bella's extent, and her hair held back by something Bella called a clip, Jenny was led into the hall again. It was awfully quiet. No sounds of screaming, no commotion, nothing. She opened her mouth to ask, but Bella rushed to another door and opened it. "Come on!" she hissed, waving her along. "We're going to need to practice being quiet!"

Jenny followed into another odd room, and took it in as Bella closed the door almost completely behind them. There was a large bed in the middle, and a few storage items around the room. It was oddly pleasant to look at, with a mixture of styles and elements that somehow combined into a functional and elegant place. Jenny had often marveled over how people chose to keep their space if they were not fighting a war, but there was something unusually comfortable about this one – appealing to senses and needs she did not know how to name, let alone understand.

Standing near another door, Ben held a book in his hands, but he wasn't reading. He was staring into the room beyond the open door. It appeared to be another bathroom, but it was clearly larger than the one Jenny and her siblings had used. She could hear a quiet commotion inside, and saw her gran and Martha murmuring over something on a scanner held in the latter's hands.

Jenny stepped closer for a better look. There were all the same items inside, but it also had what was apparently called a bathtub. And that sight had her stop in shock, whispering to Ben, "What's that bag by Dad's side, why is he shirtless, and why's Mum naked in the tub?"


End file.
